Robert Stromberg

Robert Stromberg won the Academy Award® for Best Art Direction (shared with Rick Carter) for the highest- grossing movie of all time, James Cameron's "Avatar," repeating the feat one year later when he landed his second Oscar® for Tim Burton's 3D fantasy-adventure, "Alice in Wonderland." He earned his first Oscar® nomination, as a VFX supervisor, for Peter Weir's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."

Stromberg is a second-generation industry veteran, whose father, William R. Stromberg, a low-budget filmmaker (1977's "The Crater Lake Monster") and visual effects cameraman, introduced the fledgling talent to the world of film and design as a youngster (his brother, William, became a film composer). Stromberg began his own career in the mid-1980s, specializing in matte paintings with the company Illusion Arts, for owners Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton.

His early feature film work includes "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child"; the 1989 remake of H.G. Wells' adventure story, "Journey to the Center of the Earth"; "Tremors"; Martin Scorsese's "Cape Fear" and "The Age of Innocence"; Rob Reiner's Oscar®-nominated drama "A Few Good Men"; Barry Sonnenfeld's comedy sequel, "Addams Family Values"; Robert Rodriguez's vampire thriller, "From Dusk Till Dawn"; the Sylvester Stallone actioner, "Daylight"; Rob Cohen's epic fantasy, "DragonHeart"; and Ed Zwick's contemporary wartime drama, "Courage Under Fire."

In between movie assignments, Stromberg also collaborated on such TV projects as two episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"—"The Best of Both Worlds" (his first Emmy® nomination, 1991) and "A Matter of Time" (winning his first Emmy honor in 1992). He also contributed to the "Star Trek: Voyager" pilot episode called "Caretaker," for which he shared his second Emmy Award in 1995. He also collected an Emmy nomination in 1994 for HBO's drama, "Fatherland," a fictionalized account of what might have happened had Hitler survived and triumphed in WWII.

As the art of matte painting evolved into the digital world, Stromberg formed his own visual effects company in 1998, Digital Backlot, which soon became a recognized name in the world of visual effects and design by such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg ("Catch Me If You Can"), Steven Soderbergh ("Solaris") and Robert Zemeckis ("What Lies Beneath," "Cast Away"), among others.

Stromberg segued into visual effects supervisor on such projects as "Kull the Conqueror"; "Dangerous Beauty"; Zwick's "The Siege"; the sci-fi films "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"; Scorsese's Oscar®-winning drama, "The Aviator"; the television pilot for "Men in Trees"; the big-screen adaptation of the popular comic book, "Ghost Rider"; the adventure sequel "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"; Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar®-winning drama, "There Will Be Blood"; and Ben Stiller's action comedy spoof, "Tropic Thunder."

He also collaborated with filmmaker Peter Weir on 2003's "Master and Commander," for which he earned Oscar®, BAFTA and VES (Visual Effects Society) nominations, while reimagining the roles of visual effects supervisor and production designer into a combined craft called "visual effects designer" that allowed Stromberg to create a film's physical sets during actual production, then remain on the project during post to work with the director in overseeing the creation of its virtual elements.

In 2005, Stromberg met James Cameron, beginning a collaboration that would evolve into the creation of the world of Pandora for Cameron's new film "Avatar." Along with Rick Carter, Stromberg became co-production designer on the epic fantasy film, winning the first of his two Academy Awards® along with the Art Directors Guild prize and the BAFTA and a Saturn Award nomination. A year later, he took home another Oscar® for his production design on Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," in addition to nominations for the BAFTA, the Saturn Award and a Broadcast Film Critics prize.

His more recent credits as matte artist include Stephen Sommer's action film, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, "2012," and Oliver Stone's sequel, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." He served as visual effects design consultant on the apocalyptic thriller "The Road" (based on Cormac McCarthy's best-selling novel), Scorsese's period mystery, "Shutter Island," and the pilot for HBO's acclaimed series, "Game of Thrones."

His visual effects designs for HBO also include the 2008 miniseries "John Adams," for which he won a Visual Effects Society Award and his third Emmy® for his efforts, and the cable network's epic crime drama, "Boardwalk Empire" (another Scorsese collaboration), for which he collected his fourth Emmy Award (for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series).

In addition to his achievements in the film/TV arenas (where he has compiled a list of over 100 credits), Stromberg set his sights on directing by forming a production company called Moving Target, where he spent two years as a commercial director, creating spots for such clients as Firestone and State Farm.

Walt Disney Studios