This week on 8111, John Berton!! John was born in the midwest. His dad was a mathematics professor and his mother was a musician. John loved movies as a kid and, through his dad, had early access to computers. He learned Fortran in high school and was fascinated by the logic of programming.
John attended Denison University and studied communications and even had his own radio program. For grad school he attended Ohio State and studied computer graphics with American artist and computer art pioneer Charles Csuri. His interest in film, music, physics, and programming led him down the path that would eventually lead to working in visual effects.
After grad school John went to work with Charles Csuri at his new company, Cranston/Csuri in Ohio. They made some of the first early flying logos for HBO, CBS, Cinemax, and many others. John later went to work at Mental Images in Berlin. From there he made the connection to ILM where he came to work in 1989 on Terminator 2. John’s ILM credits include; T2, Men in Black, Star Trek VI, Hook, Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, The Mask, Casper, Star Wars: A New Hope Special Edition, Deep Rising, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Men in Black 2.
Since ILM, he has continued to work on films and television creating visual effects in projects including; I, Robot, Charlotte’s Web, Bedtime Stories, Krrish3, Godzilla, 13 Reasons Why, and Deep Water. John taught for a while at Drexel in Philadelphia and left when he had a chance to come work at Lytro developing light-field rendering. Today John is back working in visual effects on a project for Netflix.
John was my Visual Effects Supervisor on Deep Rising and The Mummy. Working on John’s teams are some of my favorite memories from my time at ILM. He is absolutely brilliant, and approaches his work with equal parts technological prowess and thoughtful artistry. It was awesome to reconnect with him and hear his amazing story.
