Framestore Appoints James Whitlam as Executive Producer, Film

Framestore has appointed James Whitlam as Executive Producer, Film.

As a highly regarded producer, James has vast experience covering a full range of roles across a broad spectrum of screen industries, having worked across a range of prestigious feature films, television and commercials. His 25 years as a producer has led him to contribute to award-winning feature films including Mad Max: Fury Road, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Batman Begins.  He was recently the co-chair of the Australian section of the Visual Effects Society, and a member of the AACTA visual effects branch. 

Framestore’s strong history providing ground-breaking VFX and animation services to the Harry Potter films also makes this a great match for James. His background includes producing shots for five of the later movies within the franchise, starting as Rising Sun Pictures’ VFX Producer on The Goblet of Fire with a modest package of work and continuing on to Executive Produce work on Order of the Phoenix, The Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows (Parts 1 & 2), growing the scale of Rising Sun’s involvement and the complexity of their work on each film.

James started his career in VFX in 1991 as a runner at New York Production & Design, the only company in Australia that was recording computer generated images to 35mm film at that time. Picking up skills in paint, roto and compositing, James was able to set up his own 3D department post-apprenticeship. More recently he was instrumental in building Rising Sun Pictures into a top-tier boutique visual effects vendor, externally as their Executive Producer and internally as a member of the senior management team, over a nine year tenure. He has just completed work as Iloura’s Senior VFX Producer on Peter Berg’s film Deepwater Horizon.  

James is excited to bring the creative side of producing to his role at Framestore: "I love things that seem impossible. Creativity is not limited to the rendered image; you have to visualise everything before it’s even been shot. Scheduling, negotiating, strategising – these are not tasks one can do well without imagination."

Say Matt Fox and Fiona Walkinshaw, Joint MDs of Film, “We are very pleased to welcome James to the senior production team in Film at Framestore. He has a great track record in managing large-scale VFX projects for well-known clients and we are looking forward to adding his expertise to our fantastic team of VFX Producers.”