Owatonna native part of Oscar-winning FX team for ‘Avatar 2: The Way of Water’

OWATONNA, Minn. (KEYC) - “Avatar 2: The way of Water’ explores the sublime underwater world of fictional and computer-generated Pandora. The visual effects team who created this world won an Oscar -- and a native of Owatonna is part of that team!

“It does feel like we’re being rewarded with all the hard work and time that we put into this big thing that people spent years of their lives on,” said Jackson DeVinny, Sequence Artist for Lightstorm Entertainment, the studio behind “Avatar.”

He’s been part of Lightstorm since right before the pandemic.

“It’s surreal,” said DeVinny.

DeVinny was born and raised in Owatonna. He graduated from the Senior High School in 2014 then went to DePaul University in Chicago, after work he found his way to Los Angeles.

Despite the change to a Big City like LA, DeVinny remains humble about the Oscar win.

“You know, it’s not really on one single person that earned that award,” explained DeVinny. “It was from the combined efforts of everybody; the hard work and the great minds that we have all on the team. Eventually, we had a big celebratory event and [they] brought the awards there and I was actually able to hold it in my hand, and that was another sort of surreal [moment] because, like, d***, am I ever going to have a moment where I’m that close to something like this ever again?”

DeVinny, 27, always enjoys showing his friends and family his favorite things that he worked on.

“There’s a dark, rainy action set-piece that we worked on as well. and that was really cool,” said DeVinny.

The response of DeVinny and his family toward the second film was a boost from the first.

“AND I BELIEVE MY DAD FELL ASLEEP. MY SISTER WAS NOT THAT ENTHUSIASTIC. SHE’S NOT BIG INTO SCI-FI. AND I THOUGHT YEAH THIS MOVIE LOOKS REALLY REALLY GOOD... BUT I’M NOT REALLY THAT BLOWN AWAY BY IT.

Devinny “IT AND IT WASN’T UNTIL I WAS BEING LOOKED AT TO BE WORKED ON THESE PROJECTS THAT I GAVE IT ANOTHER LOOK AND I HAD A BIT MORE APPRECIATION FOR IT. DEFINITELY BECAUSE IT DOES LOOK AMAZING.”