Chris Evans


 * You may be searching for the actor Chris Evans.

Christopher "Chris" Leith Evans (born ) is a motion picture visual effects artist, specialized as matte painter, who has contributed to four Star Trek feature films. As a member of Industrial Light & Magic's (ILM) matte department, Evans worked as matte painting artist on and, and as matte painting supervisor on. While at Matte World he worked as chief digital matte artist on.

A remarkable contribution Evans made, was the very first digital matte painting for the Star Trek franchise, having used one of the earliest paint computer programs that had been developed in-house in 1981 by Thomas Porter at ILM. It was the completed planet surface view, seen in the closing pull-away sequence of the "Genesis Demo" in The Wrath of Khan. (American Cinematographer, October 1982, p. 1050)

Evans graduated from Bay Shore High School in 1972 and moved to Santa Monica, California, where he attended the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating with a major in Arts. Before joining ILM, Evans was eaking out a living as portraits and landscapes painter. In 1980 he was hired at the company and has specialized there as a matte painter. While employed at ILM he has worked as matte artist on Dragonslayer (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Dark Crystal (both 1982), Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), The Never Ending Story, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the television movie Ewok Adventures - Caravan of Courage (winning him a 1985 Primetime Emmy Award, shared with among others Michael Pangrazio), Starman" (those 1984), The Goonies, Cocoon, the science fiction feature Enemy Mine (those 1985), The Golden Child (1986), *batteries not included(1987), with the 1988 fantasy feature Willow (earning him an Academy Award nomination) and the 1990 science fiction movie The Abyss as his last work for ILM.

Around 1992 Evans followed former ILM colleagues Craig Barron and Michael Pangrazio (together with Effects Producer Krys Demkowicz), in order to join their company, Matte World, where he would stay until that company's demise in 2012. It was there that Evans made the backdrop matte painting of the forest backdrop where the  landed, as seen in Star Trek: First Contact. Apart from this he worked upon a slew of other productions the company was involved with, including such features as Avalon (1990), Hook (1991), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Batman Returns (1992), Jurassic Park (1993), The Shadow (1994), Casino (1995), Diabolique, Broken Arrow, Dunston Checks In (1996), the block buster Titanic (1997), The Truman Show, Great Expectations (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Dr T and the Women (2000), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jurassic Park III, The Mummy Returns, Antitrust, The Majestic (2001), The Ring (2002), Down with Love (2003), Catwoman, The Alamo (2004), The Golden Compass, Zodiac (earning him a Visual Effects Society Award nomination shared with among others Craig Barron), Invincible, Greece: Secrets of the Past (2006-2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and the 2009-2010 productions Alice in Wonderland, Terminator Salvation, X-Men Origins: Wolverine as his latest recorded credits.