John Clark
Biography
John has been in the film industry since 1994, working in live action, visual effects and animation. He specializes in Cinematography, Previs Supervision, Animation and Story Development, and has decades of experience leading vfx and animation teams teams large and small.
John has had leading roles on animated movies including Surf's Up, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, Arcane and Luck. He received a prestigious Annie Award for his camera and animation work on Surf's Up after animating all the waves on the movie and personally designing all of the surfing sequences for the film.
John grew up surfing in Cocoa Beach, Florida, then studied theater, art and history at the University of Central Florida. He began his career in film as an actor, but soon grew to love the cameras that were trained on him. He jumped into live action production as a PA, eventually directing commercials and CG shorts. He took an opportunity to work on a dream project at Sony Pictures on Surf's Up (John was a former competition surfer), changing his career to focus on animated features where he used his live action experience to bring authentic cinematography into CG animated film making.
Read more
John lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, surfs in Malibu and plays a lot of Dungeons & Dragons.
- IMDb mini biography by: John T Clark
Known For
Crew

GOAT
Director of Photography
2026

In Your Dreams
Head of Layout
2025

Arcane
Pre-Visualization Supervisor
2021

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
Head of Layout
2020

Men in Black: International
Visual Effects
2019

Rock Dog
Head of Layout
2016

Edge of Tomorrow
Layout Supervisor
2014

The Smurfs 2
Layout Supervisor
2013

Hotel Transylvania
Layout Supervisor, Pre-Visualization Supervisor
2012

The Smurfs
Layout Supervisor, Lighting Artist, Compositing Lead
2011

Alice in Wonderland
Visual Effects
2010

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Layout Supervisor
2009
