A former local man was on the team that won an Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or Special.
Garret Biles, who grew up in Prince George and graduated from PGSS, was part of the winning team that created Gettysburg, a Civil War documentary made for the History Channel.
The 63rd Creative Arts Primetime Emmy Awards ceremonies took place Sept. 10 where the winners were announced at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The live telecast for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards was aired on Sept. 18.
Biles, 28, attended the Vancouver Art Institute and now works for Stargate Studios in Vancouver as a visual effects artist.
The 15-member visual effects team Biles worked with on the Gettysburg project was under the supervision of Mike Yip at Stargate Studios. Although the whole team got credit for the win, Biles said only the bosses got the Emmy hardware.
"We all received an Emmy certificate," said Biles. "One day I'm hoping to get my hands on some hardware. That's the goal, right?"
This is only Biles' second year in the business and he has worked on shows like Grey's Anatomy, Missing, Haven, Love Bites, the pilot for new series Pan Am, and the movie, Flicka 2.
"A lot of the things we do in the studio is virtual back lots," said Biles. "Basically there is a green screen behind the actor then we put them into different places. If they are in Los Angeles we can make it look like New York and things like that."
Biles is a 3D artist so he creates three dimensional computer generated images and said the robots in Transformers is a good example of that kind of work.
In the Gettysburg piece he created the break downs of field artillery and maps of the areas the battle took place. There were cutaways of cannons and cannon balls, showing the inside to show how they function, said Biles.
Biles was always interested in computer animation and that's what led him to attend the Vancouver Art Institute.
Now Biles and the Stargate team are working on ABC's Missing with Ashley Judd and CW's Nkita.
"This is a dream job and I love every day of work," Biles said. "It couldn't be better."
