Olaf Wendt has amassed over 20 years of experience in visual effects and image making honing his acute eye for world-building and storytelling.
He most recently worked with Alejandro Iñárritu on Bardo - a visually stunning dream-like surreal movie that featured very ambitious and challenging visual effects work, for which he won a Premio Ariel at Mexico's 65th Ariel Awards.
For David O'Russel's atmospheric Amsterdam Olaf built large parts of 1930's New York.
Olaf also oversaw the visual effects on Robert Schwentkeʼs Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins for Paramount as the production supervisor, delivering around 1,100 shots through MrX.
For James Grayʼs Ad Astra he supervised the opening and closing portions of the fim, taking Brad Pitt down a 30,000 ft space antenna and deep into Neptuneʼs rings.
He was the production supervisor on Alan Taylorʼs Stalker-inspired pilot Roadside Picnic and for Gus Van Santʼs Sea of Trees.
Olaf also was a vfx supervisor on two seasons of Starzʼ Black Sails, winning an Emmy nomination for his work; he also worked on HBOʼs Game of Thrones for two seasons.
For Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he developed an on-set pre-visualization system allowing the real-time display of computer graphic characters.
Back in London Olaf co-founded the cd-rom games studio TripMedia that published the award-winning tech-noir action adventure Burn:Cycle set in a Blade-Runner style future metropolis, seamlessly fused storytelling with game-play and allowed Wendt to develop a distinctive visual style.
He co-founded one of Londonʼs first interactive media production companies, ZapFactor. There, he combined his understanding of new technologies with his strong visual design sense to produce innovative and groundbreaking work across moving image and interactive platforms for advertising clients such as Rolling Rock, Reebok, McCann-Erickson and music clients such as Erasure and Duran Duran.
Born and raised in Germany, he studied Maths and Computation at Oxford University.
His short film Performer was selected for over a dozen film festivals around the world and won several awards.
www.imdb.me/olafwendt
www.linkedin.com/in/olafwendt
olaf@olafwendt.com
2022 vfx supervisor, Bardo, dir Alejandro Iñárritu
2022 vfx supervisor, Mr X, Amsterdam, dir David O'Russell
2021 senior vfx supervisor, Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins, dir Robert Schwentke, Paramount
2019 vfx supervisor, Mr X, Ad Astra, dir James Gray, 20th Century Fox
2019 on-set vfx supervisor, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, dir Tim Hill, Paramount
2019 vfx supervisor, Mr X, The Empty Man, dir David Prior, Disney
2017 vfx supervisor, Mr X, Asura, dir Peng Zhang, Zhenian Film Studio.
2017 vfx supervisor, LA unit, Mr X, Molly’s Game, dir Aaron Sorkin, STX
2017 vfx supervisor, Mr X, Roadside Picnic pilot, dir Alan Taylor, Sony / WGN
2016 vfx supervisor, Digital Symphony, Game of Thrones Season 6, HBO
2015 vfx supervisor, CHE, The Sea of Trees, dir Gus Van Sant,
2014/5 vfx supervisor, CHE, Black Sails Seasons 2 & 3, Starz
2015 dfx supervisor, CHE, Game of Thrones Season 5, HBO
2015 vfx supervisor, CHE, True Detective Season 2, HBO
2013 vfx supervisor, Mercy, dir Peter Cornwell, Blumhouse
2013 senior compositor, Star Trek Into Darkness, dir JJ Abrams
2011 compositor, Act of Valor, dir Scott Waugh / Mouse McCoy, Bandito Bros.
2011 associate producer, to.get.her, dir Erica Dunton, won “Best of Next” award at the Sundance Film Festival
2010 vfx consultant, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, dir Neveldine & Taylor, Hyde Park Entertainment
2010 visual effects supervisor Dylan Dog, dir. Kevin Munroe, Hyde Park Entertainment.
2010 produced and directed trailer for Stephen King’s new book Full Dark No Stars
2009 on-set previs, Gulliver’s Travels, dir Rob Letterman
2009 compositor, Harry Potter Experience, Warner Bros
2007 visual effects plate supervisor Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day, dir Bharat Nallouri
2007 visual effects, motorway sequence, Mr Bean’s Holiday, dir. Steve Bendelack
2006 visual effects supervisor, Seamless FX, Black Book, dir. Paul Verhoeven
2006 produced and directed award-winning short film Performer.
2006 on-set previs, The Golden Compass, dir Chris Weisz
2005 designed and built innovative on-set previsualtisation system used on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, dir David Yates, Warner Bros
2005 visual effects plate supervisor, main title designer, Derailed dir Mikael Hafstrom,
2004 visual effects design Closer, dir Mike Nichols
1996 designed and directed Virtual Nighlcub, one of the first interactive music titles featuring Herbie Hancock, Def Jam Records and others produced by Philips Media
1991-1997 founding partner at Tripmedia Ltd
designed and produced award winning computer game Burn:Cycle, one of the first ‘interactive movies’ This title won an International EMMA (European Multi-Media Award) entered the UK all-formats game chart at No 1
education
BA & MA Maths & Computing, Oriel College, Oxford, UK
German citizen, US Green Card holder.