Responding to an enquiry from a twitter follower yesterday, WARCRAFT Director Duncan Jones called multiple award winning VFX Director Bill Westenhofer his “A-Team”
@jc_nolangang Bill is the A-Team.He’s my BA, my Hannibal, my Face and Murdoch all rolled into one!
— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) May 10, 2013
The A-Team reference not only refers to Bill’s wide ranging skill set, but also to his role as visual effects supervisor on the 2010 feature film based on the successful 1980’s TV series. The news of Bill being appointed VFX Director on the long anticipated WARCRAFT feature film was broken on Twitter late last month by Nick Carpenter, Blizzard’s vice president of art and cinematic development.
Had my first meeting with the VFX Director on the film. We are in good hands. Welcome aboard Bill Westenhofer! #wowfilm @blizzplanet
— Nick Carpenter (@FubarNick) April 26, 2013
This is obviously great news for everyone looking forward to the cinematic realisation of the World of Warcraft. Bill has a wealth of VFX experience at the highest level and was recently the winner of both BAFTA (Special Visual Effects) and Academy Award (Best Visual Effects) for his work on Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Bill also achieved the same reward for his work on The Golden Compass (2007), and was nominated in 2005 for his work on The Chronicles of Narina: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
As pre-production work starts to ramp up on WARCRAFT, hopefully this is the first of some regular news. We know Duncan is having a blast working with the team at Blizzard Entertainment, and we look forward to bringing you new developments soon 😉