Rocco Passionino

Creative Director/Visual Effects Supervisor

rocco@zoicstudios.com

As an Emmy award winning and Visual Effects Society award winning Visual Effects Supervisor Rocco Passionino oversees the design and look for the visual effects production and post production work for Zoic Studios feature film shows. From concept and look development to on-set and 2nd Unit shooting all the way through to execution of the 2D and 3D visual effects for the shows, Rocco’s experience has led to creating some of the signature looks for the studio.  In his time with Zoic, Rocco has gained a broad experience on more than fifty feature film projects.

Utilizing his high profile film experience, Rocco has been focusing his attention on Zoic Studios feature film division. He is currently supervising the MGM sequel comedy Hot Tub Time Machine 2.  Recently over the past few years he has supervised visual effects on the TV movie Killing Kennedy,  Grown Ups 2 for Columbia Pictures, Battle Of The Year for Screen Gems and Sophia Coppola’s latest film The Bling Ring for FilmNation.  Previously he has supervised visual effects on The Gangster Squad, Premium Rush, That’s My Boy, Think Like A Man, Straw Dogs, 30 Minutes or Less, Friends With Benefits, Jumping The Broom, Priest, Limitless, Just Go With It, The Roommate, How Do You Know, Burlesque, Country Strong, Red, Devil, Easy A, Piranha, Takers, The Karate Kid and Death At A Funeral.

In conjunction with his feature film duties Rocco has VFX Supervised episodic series such as Hemlock Grove for Netflix, Resurrection for ABC TV, The Saint for MPCA/Silver Screen, Castle for ABC TV, Life Unexpected for the CW, Prison Break for 20th Century Fox, Criminal Minds for CBS, the Paramount/CBS show Threshold, Fox’s Point Pleasant and Standoff, Miracles, and WB/Fox Buffy the Vampire series spin off Angel.

He received two nominations for a 2002-2003 Primetime Emmy Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Series for 20th Century Fox presentation of the Firefly “Serenity” pilot and Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or Special for the HBO Pictures original movie, Point of Origin. He received the Emmy for Firefly “Serenity” Pilot.

Before coming to Zoic, Passionino served as Digital Effects Supervisor at VisionArt on such films as New Line's Little Nicky, Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, as well as Warner Bros.’ Swordfish and House on Haunted Hill, 20th Century Fox’s Dr. Dolittle 2, the MGM remake of the action feature Rollerball, and Twentieth Century Fox's Anna and the King. Prior to joining VisionArt, Passionino played a vital role in the creation of spectacual visual effects on such films as Luc Besson's BAFTA Award winning The Fifth Element, where he worked on the Corbin Dallas Cab chase through the futuristic digital rendition of New York City. He has also worked on such films as James Cameron's Academy Award winning Titanic for which he was part of the groundbreaking team that won Digital Domain the Oscar for visual effects. He also worked on Sony's blockbuster giant monster movie Godzilla under the Centropolis Effects banner. Passionino began his career in visual effects on Ron Howard's feature film Apollo 13.

Previous to his entry into the Visual Effects realm, Rocco was a defense industry programmer for companies such as General Electric, IBM, Martin Marietta, Lockheed and Computer Sciences Corporation where he worked on several Secret and Top Secret projects.