From Exhibition Road to Hollywood Boulevard

Two Imperial alumni have won Academy Awards for their work in visual film effects. Last month some of biggest megastars on the planet picked up their iconic statuettes at the annual pinnacle of the film industry. But in the mix amongst Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Ben Affleck and Anne Hathaway were some rather lesser known names and faces, who were also duly recognised by the Academy. Two Imperial alumni, Allan Jaenicke and John-Paul Smith (Information Systems Engineering, 2000/2001) received Oscars in the Scientific & Technical Awards category for their work with visual effects software company Imagineer, which they both helped to establish soon after graduating from the College. "Although what we do at Imagineer is within the film industry, we're really quite removed from the glamorous end of it - we're making tools that get used by visual effects artists who work directly on films, and even they don't get much exposure," says CEO John-Paul, with typical modesty. The truth is that key scenes in films like Harry Potter, Black Swan, Bourne Legacy would not have been possible without techniques originally developed at Imagineer. The company was actually founded in 2000 by Allan and his friend Dr Philip McLauchlan of the University of Surrey, based on ideas they had formed around image mosaics.