Phillip Leonhardt
Phillip Leonhardt
Biography
Phil Leonhardt joined Wētā FX in 2005 to work as a Senior Compositor on Peter Jackson’s King Kong. He subsequently worked on a swathe of films, such as X-Men: The Last Stand, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Water Horse, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Lovely Bones, as well as working as a Lighting TD on James Cameron’s Avatar.  Ridley Scott’s Prometheus saw Phil take on supervisory responsibilities, and he led CG and VFX teams to deliver Man of Steel, The Wolverine and Furious 7. In addition to his work on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Phil led the VES Award-nominated Prison Camp sequence for War for the Planet of the Apes. Phil led the Iron City team on Alita: Battle Angel before joining the other VFX Supervisors on Avengers: Endgame. Most recently, Phil has been one of Wētā FX’s Visual Effects Supervisors on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Alongside the film projects, Phil has led a Research & Development team building paint, roto and comp tools to manipulate and re-create plate photography. He helped design in-house FX library tools, lighting tools for our Physlight pipeline, and deep compositing workflows, particularly in volumetrics. Phil has won an HPA award for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and has been nominated for two previous HPA awards for Maze Runner: The Death Cure and Man of Steel.  Before joining Wētā FX, Phil worked in London at Cinesite on the first three Harry Potter films, at MPC on Tomb Raider II and Troy, and at Dneg on Chronicles of Riddick. Information above via their homepage.
Personal Info
Known For
Visual Effects
Known Credits
37
Gender
Male
Birthday
Birthday not available
Place of Birth
Not available
Crew

2025

The Fantastic Four: First Steps Visual Effects Supervisor

2024

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Visual Effects Supervisor

2020

The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two Visual Effects Supervisor

2019

Avengers: Endgame Visual Effects Supervisor

2019

Alita: Battle Angel Visual Effects Supervisor

2018

Maze Runner: The Death Cure Visual Effects Supervisor

2017

War for the Planet of the Apes Sequence Supervisor

2016

Independence Day: Resurgence CG Supervisor

2015

Furious 7 CG Supervisor

2013

The Wolverine CG Supervisor

2012

Prometheus CG Supervisor

2012

Good for Nothing VFX Artist

2009

The Lovely Bones Compositing Lead

2008

The Day the Earth Stood Still Compositing Supervisor

2008

Jumper Compositing Artist

2007

The Water Horse Compositing Artist

2006

Eragon Compositing Artist

2006

X-Men: The Last Stand Digital Compositor

2006

See No Evil Compositing Artist

2005

Sahara Compositing Lead

2005

The Jacket Digital Compositor

2004

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Digital Compositor

2004

The Chronicles of Riddick Digital Compositor

2004

Troy Digital Compositor

2003

Young, Beautiful and Screwed Up Digital Compositor

2003

Cheeky Digital Compositor

2003

Blackball Compositing Artist

2002

Epsteins Nacht Digital Compositor

2002

Swept Away Rotoscoping Artist

2001

All the Queen's Men Rotoscoping Artist

2001

Vortex Rotoscoping Artist