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Stephen Rosenbaum is an American visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on over 30 film and commercial projects, including six that have won Academy Awards. Rosenbaum won two Oscar  and two  BAFTA Awards    for his work on Forrest Gump and Avatar (2009 film). He has played an integral role on such pioneering films as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, X2: X-Men United, Death Becomes Her, Contact, and The Perfect Storm.

Personal life
Rosenbaum was raised in West Los Angeles and graduated from Palisades Charter High School where he met and eventually married his high school sweetheart. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and remains a Bay Area resident along with his wife and their two girls.

Rosenbaum is a surname of German and Yiddish (Jewish) origin, which translates as "rose bush". With a fervent interest in botany, Rosenbaum has frequently experienced the tug of his namesake and perhaps the cruel miscasting of his otherwise fruitful career.

Career
Rosenbaum began his career in visual effects at the reformed Computer Graphics Department of Lucasfilm's effects division Industrial Light & Magic in 1989. The previous members of this department moved to the building next door at the offices in San Rafael, California and formed the company Pixar. This new small group of computer artists received their first chance to make a computer generated creature when James Cameron asked them to create the Pseudopod water creature for The Abyss. For each shot (filmmaking), the computer-rendered creature was recorded to film and then composited with the filmed background using the traditional technique of layering them together in an optical printer. For two of the shots, the photographed background was digitized using a film scanner and Rosenbaum utilized digital compositing to blend the water creature into the background. This was one of the many groundbreaking accomplishments on the film that help spark the rapid transition of traditional film-processed visual effects compositing, to which Industrial Light & Magic was famous, towards a demand for future compositing work to be done within the digital medium.

Cameron followed with Terminator 2 and the group expanded the artist base and developed new software to execute one of the first 3D manipulations of a human character; the T1000 performed by Robert Patrick. Rosenbaum and his fellow artists (many who have gone on to win numerous creative and technical awards) continued to thrive in their surroundings and from mentors Ken Ralston, Dennis Muren, and Eric Brevig. It was Muren who challenged the group to figure out how to create the seminal dinosaurs for Steven Spielberg in Jurassic Park, and Ralston who pushed them to take off Lt. Dan's legs, rephrase the words of presidents, and whimsically animate the feather in Forrest Gump for director Robert Zemeckis. The work they created inspired a complete paradigm shift in visual effects and filmmaking methodologies, as well as commercial digital imagery manipulation.

Rosenbaum spent several years working on various projects for his long time friend Joe Letteri at Weta Digital, and in 2007 Letteri asked him to conspire on Avatar. For two years, Rosenbaum worked with James Cameron in Los Angeles during performance capture and in New Zealand during live action photography. For the third year of the project he joined Letteri at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand to help complete the CGI on the movie.

In 2010, Rosenbaum was hired by then Digital Domain CEO Cliff Plumer to start a creature development group. He was commissioned to recruit the industry's best visual effects artists and technicians and build a scalable creature animation pipeline so the company could efficiently accommodate multiple and complex CGI characters in live action and animated features. The first project they undertook was Jack the Giant Killer (2013 film). In 2012, Rosenbaum left the company and the group has disbanded.

Filmography

 * ''Jack the Giant Killer (2013 film)" (2013) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Digital Domain)
 * Avatar (2009 film) (2009 film) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Weta Digital)
 * The Water Horse (2007) (On-set Visual Effects Supervisor: Weta Digital)
 * The Shaggy Dog (2006 film) (2005) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Walt Disney Studios)
 * The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Universal Pictures)
 * I, Robot (2004) (On-set Visual Effects Supervisor: Weta Digital)
 * X2: X-Men United (2003) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Cinesite)
 * K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) (Visual Effects Supervisor: National Geographic Films)
 * Big Trouble (2002) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * The Perfect Storm (2000) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Snow Falling on Cedars (film) (1999) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Snow Falling on Cedars (film) (1999) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Sony Pictures Imageworks)
 * The Postman (1997) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Sony Pictures Imageworks)
 * Contact (1997) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Sony Pictures Imageworks)
 * Michael (1996) (Visual Effects Supervisor: Sony Pictures Imageworks)
 * DreamWorks (Logo) (1995) (Computer Graphics Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * The Indian in the Cupboard (flm) (1995) (Computer Graphics Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Disclosure (1994) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Forrest Gump (1994) (Computer Graphics Supervisor: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Jurassic Park (1993) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Death Becomes Her (1992) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Memoirs of an Invisible Man (film) (1992) (Computer Graphics Artist:Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * The Hunt for Red October (film) (1990) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * Back to the Future Part II (1989) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)
 * The Abyss (1989) (Computer Graphics Artist: Industrial Light & Magic)

Academy Award

 * 2010 Oscar - winner for Best Visual Effects - Avatar (2009)
 * 1995 Oscar - winner for Best Visual Effects - Forrest Gump (1994)

BAFTA

 * 2010 BAFTA Film Award - winner for best Special Visual Effects - Avatar (2009)
 * 1995 BAFTA Film Award - winner for best Special Visual Effects - Forrest Gump (1994)

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films

 * 2010 Saturn Award - winner for Best Special Effects - Avatar (2009)
 * 2004 Saturn Award - nominee for Best Special Effects - X2: X-Men United (2003)
 * 1998 Saturn Award - nominee for Best Special Effects - Contact (1997)