Paul Kavanagh

Paul Kavanagh is the lead animator at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He was ILM's Animation Supervisor on 's. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for Star Trek, which he shared with Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, and Burt Dalton. In Kavanagh, Earl, Guyett, and Dalton received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Special Effects for their work on Star Trek. 

Kavanagh's prior credits as a lead animator at ILM include all three Star Wars prequels (Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 1999, Episode II: Attack of the Clones in 2002, and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in 2005) and the first three Harry Potter films (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2002, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004). He was also the lead animator on the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003 and Dead Man's Chest in 2006) and on both Transformers movies (2007 and the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, in 2009). The latter two films were co-written by Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

As ILM's animation supervisor, Kavanagh previously worked with Star Trek's director and producer, J.J. Abrams, on the 2006 Paramount film Mission: Impossible III. This film was also co-written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and featured Simon Pegg. Kavanagh's other film credits have included the Michael Bay films Pearl Harbor and The Island and the 2008 Paramount blockbuster, Iron Man. The latter, like Star Trek, also featured Faran Tahir.

Star Trek is the second of three films Kavanagh has worked on which starred Zoe Saldana. The first was the aforementioned Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (which also featured Lee Arenberg, Michael Berry, Jr., Vanessa Branch, Greg Ellis, and Guy Siner). The third was James Cameron's highly-anticipated science fiction film Avatar, which premiered in December 2009.