Rocco Passionino

VFX Supervisor/Creative Director

As an Emmy and Visual Effects Society award winning Visual Effects Supervisor for Zoic Studios, Rocco Passionino oversees the design and look for the visual effects production and post production work for several of the studios high profile 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.

Utilizing his high profile film experience, Rocco has been focusing his attention on Zoic Studios feature division supervising such films as the upcoming thriller Vacancy for Screen Gems, Bordertown for Capital Films and Stomp the Yard for Screen Gems. Previous to these films, he supervised the work on Deuce Bigalow 2, The Day After Tomorrow and Spiderman 2.

In conjunction with his feature film duties Rocco VFX Supervises CBS’ Criminal Minds, Fox’s Standoff and Fox’s Prison Break episodic series. Past supervision included the Paramount/CBS show Threshold, Fox’s Point Pleasant, Miracles, and WB/Fox 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 CG and Digital Effects Supervisor at VisionArt on such films as New Line's Little Nicky, Sweetpea Entertainment/New Line Cinema feature film Dungeons and Dragons, Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, the 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 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.