Presenter

Originally from Los Angeles, California, Kevin Smith arrived at Wētā FX in 2000 to work as a Shader Writer for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Kevin was heavily involved in the look development of Gollum before moving on to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as a 3D Sequence Lead. He recently wrapped as Wētā FX’s Visual Effects Supervisor on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

In 2003, Kevin joined Sony Pictures Imageworks, working in varying roles on projects such as The Matrix Revolutions, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and Beowulf.

James Cameron’s Avatar brought Kevin back to Wētā FX in 2007. Kevin was also Digital Effects Supervisor on Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin.

No stranger to working with Titans, Kevin was the VFX Supervisor on Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023. Kevin was also the VFX Supervisor on Zack Snyder’s Justice League. For Mortal Engines he supervised the creation of the CG environment Shan Guo, the third act’s mountain city location, along with sequences in the final battle. A Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 he was instrumental in the creation of Planet Hollow.

For fan favorite holiday movie Krampus, Kevin was the onset VFX Supervisor, working directly with the client from planning and pre-production through to final realization and delivery. He was also the second-unit on-location VFX Supervisor on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Sequence VFX Supervisor on the subsequent two films in the trilogy.

Kevin studied Physics and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.