Robert Legato

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Robert Legato (born 1956) is an American visual effects supervisor, second unit director, and second unit director of photography.

Raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Legato graduated from Ocean Township High School.^[1]

Career[edit]

He directed the 2016 film Eloise.

He has been nominated for five Academy Awards and has won three. His first win was for his visual effects work on Titanic, his second was for his work on Hugo and his third for The Jungle Book. In 1996, he won the BAFTA award for Best Achievement in Special Effects for Apollo 13, for which he also garnered his first Academy Award nomination. He won Academy Awards in Visual effects for Hugo and The Jungle Book. In 2020, he received his fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects for The Lion King.

Prior to his work in film, he was a Visual Effects Supervisor for Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1992, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993. His work on the Star Trek franchise earned him three Emmy nominations and two wins, as well as an in-front-of-the-camera appearance on Reading Rainbow for an episode devoted to a behind-the-scenes look at TNG.

Legato is a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and the Visual Effects Society (VES).

Filmography[edit]

Year	Title
1994	Interview with the Vampire
1995	Apollo 13
1997	Titanic
2000	What Lies Beneath
2000	Cast Away
2001	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2003	Bad Boys II
2004	The Aviator
2006	The Departed
2006	The Good Shepherd
2007	The Key to Reserva
2008	Shine a Light
2009	Avatar
2010	Shutter Island
2011	Hugo
2013	The Wolf of Wall Street
2016	The Jungle Book
2019	The Lion King

Television[edit]

Year	Title	Visual effects supervisor	Visual effects coordinator	Visual effects artist
1986	The Twilight Zone			1 Episode
1987–1992	Star Trek: The Next Generation	46 Episodes	17 Episodes
1993	Star Trek: Deep Space Nine	18 Episodes		1 Episode

References[edit]

^ Staff. "Shore's Robert Legato is special-effects wizard behind 'Hugo'", Asbury Park Press, February 26, 2012. "Many decades later, after growing up in Asbury Park, graduating from Ocean Township High School and studying film in Santa Barbara, Calif., Legato has become the magician."

External links[edit]

Robert Legato on IMDb
Robert Legato at TED
- "Rob Legato: The art of creating awe". TEDGlobal 2012. TED. June 2012.
"Rob Legato on Hugo and The Joy of Filmmaking". Creative Cow Magazine. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
"VFX Supervisor Rob Legato on Hugo". StudioDaily.com. Retrieved 21 February 2013.

Awards for Robert Legato

v t e Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
1963-1980	Emil Kosa Jr. (1963) Peter Ellenshaw, Eustace Lycett, and Hamilton Luske (1964) John Stears (1965) Art Cruickshank (1966) L. B. Abbott (1967) Stanley Kubrick (1968) Robbie Robertson (1969) L. B. Abbott and A. D. Flowers (1970) Alan Maley, Eustace Lycett, Danny Lee (1971) L. B. Abbott and A. D. Flowers (1972) no award given (1973) Frank Brendel, Glen Robinson, and Albert Whitlock (1974) Glen Robinson and Albert Whitlock (1975) Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson, and Frank Van der Veer (1976) John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune, and Robert Blalack (1977) Les Bowie, Colin Chilvers, Denys Coop, Roy Field, Derek Meddings, and Zoran Perisic (1978) H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, and Dennis Ayling (1979) Brian Johnson, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Bruce Nicholson (1980)
1981-2000	Richard Edlund, Kit West, Bruce Nicholson, and Joe Johnston (1981) Carlo Rambaldi, Dennis Muren, and Kenneth F. Smith (1982) Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, and Phil Tippett (1983) Dennis Muren, Michael J. McAlister, Lorne Peterson, and George Gibbs (1984) Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Scott Farrar, and David Berry (1985) Robert Skotak, Stan Winston, John Richardson, and Suzanne Benson (1986) Dennis Muren, William George, Harley Jessup, and Kenneth F. Smith (1987) Ken Ralston, Richard Williams, Edward Jones, and George Gibbs (1988) John Bruno, Dennis Muren, Hoyt Yeatman, and Dennis Skotak (1989) Eric Brevig, Rob Bottin, Tim McGovern, and Alex Funke (1990) Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren Jr., and Robert Skotak (1991) Ken Ralston, Doug Chiang, Doug Smythe, and Tom Woodruff Jr. (1992) Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, and Michael Lantieri (1993) Ken Ralston, George Murphy, Stephen Rosenbaum, and Allen Hall (1994) Scott E. Anderson, Charles Gibson, Neal Scanlan, and John Cox (1995) Volker Engel, Douglas Smith, Clay Pinney, and Joe Viskocil (1996) Robert Legato, Mark Lasoff, Thomas L. Fisher, Michael Kanfer (1997) Joel Hynek, Nicholas Brooks, Stuart Robertson, and Kevin Mack (1998) John Gaeta, Janek Sirrs, Steve Courtley, and Jon Thum (1999) John Nelson, Neil Corbould, Tim Burke, and Rob Harvey (2000)
2001-present	Jim Rygiel, Randall William Cook, Richard Taylor, Mark Stetson (2001) Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, and Alex Funke (2002) Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, and Alex Funke (2003) John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara, and John Frazier (2004) Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers, and Richard Taylor (2005) John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, and Allen Hall (2006) Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood (2007) Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron (2008) Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones (2009) Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, and Peter Bebb (2010) Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, and Alex Henning (2011) Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan de Boer, and Donald R. Elliott (2012) Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, and Neil Corbould (2013) Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, and Scott R. Fisher (2014) Mark Williams Ardington, Sara Bennett, Paul Norris, and Andrew Whitehurst (2015) Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones, and Dan Lemmon (2016) John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert, and Richard R. Hoover (2017) Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J. D. Schwalm (2018) Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler, and Dominic Tuohy (2019)

BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects

1982–2000

Richard Edlund (1982)
Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston and Kit West (1983)
Dennis Muren, George Gibbs, Michael J. McAlister and Lorne Peterson (1984)
George Gibbs and Richard Conway (1985)
Robert Skotak, Brian Johnson, John Richardson and Stan Winston (1986)
Michael Lantieri, Michael Owens, Ed Jones and Bruce Walters (1987)
George Gibbs, Richard Williams, Ken Ralston and Ed Jones (1988)
Ken Ralston, Michael Lantieri, John Bell and Steve Gawley (1989)
The special visual effects team of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1990)
Stan Winston, Dennis Muren, Gene Warren Jr. and Robert Skotak (1991)
Michael Lantieri, Ken Ralston, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Doug Chiang and Douglas Smythe (1992)
Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Phil Tippett and Michael Lantieri (1993)
Ken Ralston, George Murphy, Stephen Rosenbaum, Doug Chiang and Allen Hall (1994)
Robert Legato, Michael Kanfer, Matt Sweeney and Leslie Ekker (1995)
Stefen Fangmeier, John Frazier, Henry LaBounta and Habib Zargarpour (1996)
Mark Stetson, Karen Goulekas, Nick Allder, Neil Corbould and Nick Dudman (1997)
Stefen Fangmeier, Roger Guyett and Neil Corbould (1998)
John Gaeta, Steve Courtley, Janek Sirrs and Jon Thum (1999)
Stefen Fangmeier, John Frazier, Walt Conti, Habib Zargarpour and Tim Alexander (2000)

2001–present

Jim Rygiel, Richard Taylor, Alex Funke, Randall William Cook and Mark Stetson (2001)
Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke (2002)
Joe Letteri, Jim Rygiel, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke (2003)
Karen Goulekas, Neil Corbould, Greg Strause and Remo Balcells (2004)
Joe Letteri, Christian Rivers, Brian Van't Hul and Richard Taylor (2005)
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and Allen Hall (2006)
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood (2007)
Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Nathan McGuinness and Edson Williams (2008)
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones (2009)
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb (2010)
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Greg Butler and David Vickery (2011)
Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron and Erik-Jan de Boer (2012)
Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould and Nikki Penny (2013)
Paul Franklin, Scott R. Fisher, Andrew Lockley and Ian Hunter (2014)
Chris Corbould, Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh and Neal Scanlan (2015)
Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones and Adam Valdez (2016)
Richard R. Hoover, Paul Lambert, Gerd Nefzer and John Nelson (2017)
Geoffrey Baumann, Jesse James Chisholm, Craig Hammack and Dan Sudick (2018)
Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron and Dominic Tuohy (2019)

Satellite Award for Best Visual Effects

Volker Engel and Douglas Smith (1996)
Ken Ralston (1997)
Ellen Somers (1998)
Jerome Chen, John Dykstra, Henry F. Anderson III and Eric Allard (1999)
John Nelson (2000)
Chris Godfrey (2001)
Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke (2002)
Stefen Fangmeier, Nathan McGuinness, Robert Stromberg and Dan Sudick (2003)
Andy Brown and Kirsty Millar / Robert Legato, Peter G. Travers, Matthew Gratzner and R. Bruce Steinheimer (2004)
John Knoll and Hal Hickel (2005)
John Knoll and Hal Hickel (2006)
Chris Watts, Grant Freckelton, Derek Wentworth and Daniel Leduc (2007)
Chris Godfrey, James E. Price and Diana Giorgiutti (2008)
Volker Engel, Marc Weigert and Mike Vézina (2009)
Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips (2010)
Robert Legato, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning and Adam Watkins (2011)
Jim Gibbs, Kevin Baillie, Michael Lantieri and Ryan Tudhope (2012)
Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould (2013)
Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon and Matt Kutcher (2014)
Jim Gibbs, Kevin Baillie, Viktor Muller and Sébastien Moreau (2015)
Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones and Adam Valdez (2016)
John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover and Gerd Nefzer (2017)
Geoffrey Baumann, Jesse James Chisholm, Craig Hammack and Dan Sudick (2018)
Joe Letteri and Eric Saindon (2019)

Contents

Career[edit]

Filmography[edit]

Television[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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