Rocco Passionino

VFX Supervisor/Digital Effects Supervisor

As Digital Effects Supervisor for Zoic Studios, Rocco oversees the entire production pipeline for both the 2D and 3D divisions of the company. He also serves as Associate Visual Effects Supervisor for the WB/20th Century Fox Episodic TV Show Angel.

Before coming to Zoic, Passionino served as CG and Digital Effects Supervisor at VisionArt on such films as New Line Cinema's Adam Sandler starrer Little Nicky, Sweetpea Entertainment/New Line Cinema feature film Dungeons and Dragons, Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, the upcoming Gold Crest release To End All Wars, as well as Warner Bros.’ Swordfish, 20th Century Fox’s Dr. Dolittle 2, the MGM remake of the action feature Rollerball, House on Haunted Hill for Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox's Anna and the King. Prior to joining VisionArt, Passionino played a vital role in the creation of award winning visual effects on such films as Luc Besson's 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 it's 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 ten years ago 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 Corperation where he worked on several Secret and Top Secret projects.

A graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, Watson School of Engineering, Rocco has used his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science as a stepping stone for the film and television industry. Originally hired as a programmer for the Jan deBont reimagining of Godzilla it was ironic 6 years later in his career he ended up working on the Roland Emmerich version.