ABOUT JON

Raised on a steady diet of Horror, Sci-Fi and Action films from the 70s and 80s, Jon Alvord is an award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor with a proven track record of helping Directors achieve their visions by offering creative solutions, within budget, and tapping into his vast cross-departmental experiences in his 30+ years in the industry.

On the surface, his journey to VFX supervising seems indirect, but his depth of experience across complementary departments makes him a decisive leader in post-production and charted his path to where he is now.

Alvord began his film career in 1987 as a Special Effects Make-Up Artist studying under Academy Award Winners, Bill Tuttle and Dick Smith. After partnering with Emmy Award-winning artist, Thomas Surprenant, Alvord worked until 1993 on numerous feature films and TV shows including the Marvin Westmore project Space Rangers. Though werewolves and gore inspired his pursuit of film, Alvord gained a passion for editing during his film school experience at the University of Southern California, leading to over twenty years in post-production.

After joining the Editors Guild, Alvord became an assistant editor on feature films including Batman Forever and D3: The Mighty Ducks before a producer showed faith in his skills, promoting him to lead editor on independent feature films The Dangerous and Along the Way.

Man with brown hair sitting outside, on a sunny day, looking at the camera, smiling

By the late 90s, Alvord blended advancing technological developments with a love of editing and effects. In 1997 he became the Senior Avid Visual Effects Editor at Cinesite Digital Studios, Hollywood, where he worked on over 40 films including Armageddon, Ali, Thirteen Days, The Truman Show and X-Men.

After 15 years in Hollywood, Alvord relocated to Austin, TX, in 2002, and joined GSD&M and 1080, Inc., where he edited national and political commercials including Presidential and Senatorial campaigns earning nominations for Polly Awards and a Gold Dove Award for “Chess”, a PSA for the Red Cross. In Austin, he also joined Troublemaker Studios and worked on the feature films Spy Kids 3, Sin City, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D and Grindhouse: Planet Terror. Immersing himself in the visual effects process, Alvord created composites of footage, on set, to ensure that the effects elements would work in post-production before returning to the dark office caves of Troublemaker’s second floor to run VFX editorial, composite a handful of shots and assist the Flame artists.

In 2007, Alvord was recruited to join CafeFX for several projects, including The Happening and John Woo’s Red Cliff. But most notably, Alvord received Emmy recognition from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his contribution to "Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries" on the Award-Winning HBO mini-series John Adams.

After industry strikes in 2008 resulted in facility closures, Alvord moved to Savannah, GA, to become a Professor of Film & Television at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). He arrived at an important time in the development of the film program. With his technical expertise and editing skills, he supervised their acquisition of technology and rebuilt departmental pipelines between sound and visual effects to keep SCAD competitive with all other top tier film schools. He helped the faculty bring those advancements into their curriculums and taught the students the skills to be competitive in the marketplace, contributing to SCAD’s rise into the top 25 films schools. During his tenure he post-supervised over 250 film shorts, including entries into Tribeca, Sundance, SXSW, and Savannah Film Festival.

While at SCAD, Alvord received his master’s degree as a Visual Effects Supervisor and was editor and post-production supervisor on the feature film Savannah, starring Jim Caviezel and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

In 2016, Alvord relocated back to CA to continue his career in post-production and visual effects. While rebuilding the film post-production department at Idyllwild Arts Academy, Alvord maintained employment in the film industry, getting two world premieres in the Tribeca Film Festival, The 716th (2018) and Abducted (2020), and completing post-production on the critically acclaimed film short, Pam & Ivy.

Most recently, Alvord joined Epic Shepherd and has been their visual effects supervisor on sequences for the NFL (Bring Down the House), Amazon (The Peripheral), Paramount + (The Offer), Apple TV+ (Shantaram) and Screen Gems (True Haunting).