Laredoan and 2013 LBJ High School graduate Jorge Macias recently captured an Emmy award for special effects for his work on Spider-Noir at the 78th Television Annual Awards ceremony on September 14th in Los Angeles. Macias and Adam Rothstein and members of their team were recognized for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode for the “Nightmare on a Gurney” episode.
Both Macias and Rothstein are graduates of Texas A&M University-College Station; Macias with a Bachelor of Science in Visualization and Rothstein with a Masters of Fine Arts in Visualization.
According to a Texas A&M College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts publication, Macias received the award for his role as the lead visual effects artist on the live-action Spider-Noir episode that featured Nicolas Cage as an aging private investigator in New York City during the Great Depression. Sony Pictures Television produced the series in association with Amazon MGM Studios. It aired on Amazon Prime Video, according to the A&M publication.
According to the publication, Macias said that he “was sitting with my team just happy to be there. When we heard the renowned phrase, ‘And the Emmy goes to …’ my hands started to sweat, and my heart was racing, and then we heard Spider-Noir and just exploded with excitement. It was such an honor to have the whole room celebrating the hard work we had put in.”
For Macias the trek in film began at LBJ high school where he was part of the technology and industry academy that had avenues for video production, robotics, and photography. “Thanks to teachers like Michael Carrillo, Jeffrey Castillo, and Carlos Ruiz, I was able to explore programs and software. Practicing in a classroom environment was the perfect way to make mistakes and learn from them, without consequences,” he said.
He attributes the work ethic he learned in Laredo as key to his success. “Laredoans have some of the strongest work ethics I know,” he said.
Macias told the A&M publication that his goal for Nightmare on a Gurney was photo-realism, working to combine computer-generated assets with a green screen that digitally expanded the live-action set.
His IMdB page lists nineteen visual effects credits over a gamut of diverse projects in film shorts, films, and television series. Among his visual effects work are eight episodes of Spider-Noir, Disney’s Marvel Studios’ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Perry Mason.
Most recently Macias worked on the Netflix comedy series, The Hawk, featuring comedy legend Will Ferrell.
Macias credits a childhood love of movies and television with sparking his interest in animation and special effects. “I loved sketching and playing with my toys, all of which required imagination. I believe it is important to let children play and get lost in imagination. It is part of being a kid after all,” he said.
(Armando X. Lopez is an attorney, poet, journalist, and lifelong advocate for this frontera that he loves dearly.)
