Ken Ralston

Visual Effects

Kenneth Ralston (born 1954) is an American visual effects artist, visual effects supervisor and Creative Head at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Ralston began his career at the commercial animation and visual effects company Cascade Pictures in Hollywood, where he worked on over 150 advertising campaigns in the early 1970s. In 1976, Dennis Muren hired him at Industrial Light & Magic to help George Lucas create the effects for Star Wars. He remained at ILM for 20 years before joining Sony Pictures Imageworks as president. Ralston is best known for his work in the films of Robert Zemeckis.

Ralston has won five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects, including a Special Achievement Academy Award for the visual effects in Return of the Jedi (1983), and regular awards for his work on Cocoon (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992) and Forrest Gump (1994). He was nominated three more times for Dragonslayer (1981), Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Where to start: Star Wars: Greatest Moments (2015).