Moviemaker of the Week: Mark Forker

by MovieMaker Staff | Published February 28, 2007

Most moviemakers dream of they day when they can put their harrowing days of small-budget projects behind them. While theyâ€™re off shooting an independent movie on a shoestring, visions of deeps pools of money, garish special effects and unlimited resources fuel their creative fire. So it might appear odd that someone would reverse-engineer his career, from point B to point A, especially when that person is firmly ensconced in big-budget Hollywood.

But that is what Mark Forker has done. During his 12 years working as a digital compositor and visual effects supervisor at Digital Domain, the visual effects company founded by James Cameron and Stan Winston, Forker has worked on such big-budget projects as Titanic, Apollo 13, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But he has left Hollywood for Philadelphia, where he is overseeing DIVE, the new visual effects and film finishing house division of Shooters Post & Transfer, an award-winning visual effects, design and post-production facility. As the head of DIVE, Forker works primarily with independent moviemakers on smaller budgets (though he will still provide visual effects supervision services to studios and moviemakers in Hollywood from time to time).

Forker is excited to be working with independent moviemakers, despite his years of working at Digital Domain. While he says the process of satisfying the directorâ€™s hunger for effects work is the same regardless of budget, cost will be significantly lower and there will be less bureaucratic and political meddling with his work at DIVE.

â€œThe advantage of the smaller, indie-sized moviemaking process is I can spend more time on the creative process and less time managing ungodly amounts of work,â€ Forker says. â€œAt the end of the day, there are less people and layers getting in the way of the directors creative vision.â€

Sound Off: Mark Forker and DIVE are making visual effects work more accessible to independent moviemakers. How important do you think visual effects are, or should be, to independent moviemaking? Let us know in our comments section!