Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has hired industry vet Dawn Turner as director of new business development.
Turner will identify and cultivate new global business opportunities for the iconic Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, focusing on promoting the services it can provide clients in film, television, advertising, live theatre and events, and AR and VR. Her efforts will especially focus on the Shop’s celebrated practical animatronic and puppet work along with expanding the scope of its work in performed animation utilizing the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio, an award-winning proprietary technology that allows puppeteers to perform CG characters in real time, allowing for greater spontaneity and realism.
“Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is known the world over for creating some of the best-known characters in entertainment. I want everyone in the industry to know the full scope of our capabilities, not only in the world of practical creature effects but also with digital puppetry and the exciting new opportunities it offers for all kinds of creative endeavors,” says Turner. “From delivering more improvised and lifelike character performances and effects in real-time, to shortening the post-production turnaround process and cutting post-production costs, the possibilities of the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio are endless and I intend to make sure the creative community has the opportunity to learn all about this amazing technology.”
Before joining Henson, Turner was a producer in business development at Technicolor Creative Services and served as a producer of VFX and animation on a number of creative projects. Some of her credits include Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Nim’s Island, Bruce Almighty, Scary Movie 4, The Boondocks, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Shark Tale, Madagascar and many more. Turner also served on the awards committee for the Visual Effects Society for several years and is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America, Women in Animation and Women in Film.
About Jim Henson’s Creature Shop
Jim Henson’s Creature Shop provides digital visual effects, animatronic creatures, animation and soft puppets to the international film, television, theater, live event and advertising industries. Recent credits include Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (Apple TV+), Duff’s Happy Fun Bake Time (discovery+), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix), Word Party (Netflix), and Splash and Bubbles (PBS Kids).
Based in Los Angeles and New York with satellite shop capabilities internationally, the Shop is known for designing and building some of the world’s best-known characters including the Sesame Street puppets, the classic Muppets, the dinosaurs from Dinosaurs, the aliens from Farscape and the fantastical creatures from The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Other feature film credits include The Happytime Murders, Where the Wild Things Are, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Five Children and It. The shop is also known for its live performance work with artists like Cee Lo Green, Kanye West, Lady Gaga and Deadmau5.
A recipient of more than nine Emmy Awards for its outstanding work building puppets for Sesame Street, the Shop also received an Academy Award for its visual effects work on the film Babe. Other awards include a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for the Henson Performance Control System, a powerful custom-based interface for puppeteers, and an Emmy Award for its work in developing the Henson Digital Performance Studio, a patented control system technology that enables puppeteers to perform computer-generated characters in real time.
