Pavani Rao Boddapati

She has just finished work on James Cameron’s Avatar: The way of Water, building on her supervision of the underwater sequence in Alita: Battle Angel (2019) and has contributed to the development of Wētā’s next-generation water pipeline.

Pavani was CG Supervisor on Avatar: Flight of Passage (2017), a 3D flying-simulator ride for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park which won a Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects. She led the team in designing a bespoke pipeline to deliver every aspect of the ride’s fully immersive Pandora environment, created in stereo at 10K 60FPS.

Pavani joined Wētā FX as a Lighting Technical Director on Avatar (2009). She was Lead Lighting Technical Director on Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and CG Supervisor on The Hobbit trilogy (2012–14). Drawing on her architectural background, she led the team in building and later damaging the post-apocalyptic CG world in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015).

Pavani began her VFX career at Rhythm and Hues in Los Angeles where she contributed look development to Academy Award-winner The Golden Compass (2007).

She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.