Biography

John Nelson graduated with high distinction from the University of Michigan in 1976 with a Bachelors in General Studies. After college, he made several films that won awards at film festivals and moved to California in 1979 to work for Robert Abel and Associates, first as a cameraman, then as a technical director and finally as a director. He was nominated for Clio awards six times, winning twice. In 1987, he moved to Germany to help set up the German company Mental Images GMBH. Upon returning to the US John went to work for Industrial Light & Magic where he animated several key scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), most notably where the shotgunned head of the chrome terminator re-seals itself.

John VFX supervised Stay Tuned (1992) for Rhythm & Hues Studios, and In the Line of Fire (1993), My Life (1993), The Pelican Brief (1993), Wolf (1994), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Judge Dredd (1995), The Cable Guy (1996) and City of Angels (1998) for Sony Pictures Imageworks.

In 1998 Mr. Nelson left Sony to Senior VFX supervise Gladiator (2000) for which he won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (2001). After K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) and the Centropolis sections of The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Mr. Nelson supervised all the VFX in I, Robot (2004) and Iron Man (2008) both of which were nominated for the Academy Award in Visual Effects. On March 4, 2018 Mr. Nelson won his second Academy Award for the Special Visual Effects in Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Visual Effects Society, the International Cinematographers Guild and the Director's Guild of America.
- IMDb mini biography by: Alexander Gaydos