Jonathan Keeton
- Visual Effects
- Production Manager
Jonathan Keeton
Visual Effects/Creative Director
Jonathan Keeton is a veteran of the film and TV industry with more than thirty years of experience creating visual effects for commercials, music videos, feature films and TV series. Most recently he has been Executive Creative Director of Bonfire Labs, a new model agency in San Francisco. Prior to that he was ECD at Pixomondo, where his responsibilities included setting up a US commercial division, working in a new business model designed to take advantage of the new global nature of the industry in collaboration with the nine other studios around the world.
Jonathan's distinguished credits include the feature films Warm Springs, Live from Baghdad, Cast Away, Something's Gotta Give, , Rising Sun, and Spider-Man 2, as well as the TV shows "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," "Angel" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". He has also designed and created effects for commercials such as VW Polo, Target, McDonald's, Lugz, Volvo, Unilever and Ford, as well as directing several spots.
During his career in visual effects Jonathan Keeton has been a principal member of several award-winning companies. In 1996 he co-founded and was the president of Radium, to address what he saw as the growing gap between design and visual effects. Radium worked extensively with the top agencies and production companies and went on to become synonymous with quality, reliability and innovation. Keeton co-founded Western Images in 1986 where he worked on a variety of landmark projects such as "Preston Change-o," a commercial for the Milk Advisory Board that won a Silver Lion at Cannes. In 1993, Keeton founded Good Pictures Design & Effects, the sister company of Western Images.
Originally trained as a visual artist and an actor, Jonathan's involvement with digital technology for visual effects began in California 1983 as part of a pioneering team working with the Quantel Paintbox. He was also one of the very first users of the Quantel Harry system and Discreet Logic Flame/Inferno system when they were first introduced.
Keeton has garnered many industry accolades for his commercial work, including an Emmy, two Monitor Awards, a VES award for best visual effects in a music video, a Belding Award for the landmark Honda 'Pump' and eight Broadcast Designers Association Awards.