VFX Veteran and VES Committee for Outreach Chair & International Board of Directors Member Tim McGovern was recently admitted to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital owing to ill health.
Having played an instrumental role in the growth of the VFX industry, McGovern is looked upon as the VFX mentor across the landscape. He’s given more than sixty talks in the US, Japan, Korea, Europe, Middle East and India on visual effects and animation topics. He has also served as an expert witness in legal proceedings regarding visual effects patent issues, as well as for a feature film copyright issue.
His wife Reena NeGandhi posted on her facebook account, “My husband Tim is in ICU att the hospital. Monday he had a fever and went to one doctor that didn’t think it was covid and gave him some meds. He was feeling tired the last three days. Today his body got so sore he couldn’t even walk. He went to a different doctor on Tuesday who gave him some medication and asked him to do blood and Urine tests. Today Wednesday his body was in such pain. We have to go to get another test but I said no we are going into emergency room. So glad I did. They did tests they found in his chest he has an infection, his left leg was swollen and that’s bc he has blood clots all over his left leg. He also has a problem with his kidneys and liver. He was having hard time breathing they are giving him oxygen. I’m worried about the blood clots and don’t want them to go to his heart.”
Hoping that he is covid-free and imploring readers to pray for him, she shared, “He’s in a good private hospital. Waiting for his Covid test results that we will know tomorrow. If he’s Covid free he will move to a regular room as now he’s in a room where patients waiting for Covid tests are waiting. If he has Covid he has to be transferred to another hospital as this hospital does not treat Covid patients”
Tim began his career, at the inception of digital / computer visual effects, in the otherwise analog VFX industry, doing award-winning, groundbreaking work in VFX and Computer animation. In addition to winning an Academy Award in 1990 for Digital Visual Effects for the movie, Total Recall, Tim garnered 5 Clios, a Hugo, and a Mobius award. In 1992, at the creative and technical helm of Sony Picture Imageworks, he grew the company from 8 to 250 employees. A testament to Tim’s eye for talent is that among the employees he has hired in his career, 4 went on to win their own Visual Effects Academy Awards.
Speaking to AnimationXpress, he had recently informed that he was reviewing VFX shots for a Disney movie.
We hope he recovers soon. We’ll keep you posted on further developments.
