Andy Serkis, David Pierce and Jeffrey White have accepted invitations to join the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Serkis is the award-winning actor known for roles such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes trilogy, while his directing credits include Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The multihyphenate is also co-founder, alongside producer Jonathan Cavendish, of The Imaginarium, a multiplatform production company linked to a performance capture studio. Serkis will next appear on-screen in The Batman, portraying Alfred Pennyworth. He has been a member of the Academy’s actors branch since 2012.
Archivist and film historian Pierce is assistant chief and chief operations officer of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Library of Congress, where he is responsible for the acquisition, conservation and digitization of the world’s largest public archives of motion pictures, television, radio and recorded sound. He is the author of The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929 and co-author, with James Layton, of The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915-1935 and King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman’s Technicolor Revue. He founded the Media History Digital Library and has been an Academy member-at-large since 2019.
White is a feature and TV producer specializing in independent film and visual effects. Currently an executive producer consulting with Drafthouse Films, he has worked in the feature production department of Warner Bros. and held roles as vp production and producer for Winkler/Daniel Productions at Paramount Pictures, as well as president and executive producer at Pellerin Multimedia, which produced King Kong: Peter Jackson’s Production Diaries for Universal Pictures. He has been a member of the Academy’s producers branch since 1982.
The council co-chairs for 2021–22 are visual effects branch governor Craig Barron and member-at-large Annie Chang.
The council’s 20 other returning members are Bill Baggelaar, Linda Borgeson, visual effects branch governor Brooke Breton, Lois Burwell, makeup artists and hairstylists branch governor Bill Corso, sound branch governor Teri E. Dorman, Theo Gluck, Buzz Hays, Greg Hedgepath, Leslie Iwerks, Andrea Kalas, Colette Mullenhoff, Ujwal Nirgudkar, Helena Packer, Arjun Ramamurthy, Rachel Rose, Dave Schnuelle, Leon Silverman, Jeffrey E. Taylor and Amy Vincent.
Source: HollyWood
