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Barry Howell graduated from Franklin High School in 1992 and headed off to college to become a mechanical engineer.  After completing his first year at Old Dominion University, Barry saw a movie that radically changed his life.  He had always dreamed of working in the movies, but had no idea how to get his foot in the door.  After watching “Jurassic Park” he realized how he would pursue his dream.  The movie made ground breaking use of computer-generated animation and this would become Barry’s new focus of study.

After much researching, Barry reached out to a variety of companies that provided visual effects for Hollywood including such companies as Lucasfilm, Disney and Pixar.  With new information in hand he created his own degree by combining traditional art studies with computer science along with some animation classes at Norfolk State.

After graduation, Barry flew out to California twice, meeting with various people who worked in the industry.  By the end of his second trip, he had gotten two job offers and started working a month later.  For the next four years he grinded away working 60 to 80-hour weeks, bouncing between different visual effects houses, each time learning a new skill.  Barry worked on everything from cartoons, commercials, television pilots, episodics, specials and mini-series.

In 2003, only four years after landing his first industry job, Barry was nominated for and won Television’s highest award, the Emmy.  Walking the red carpet with other celebrities and attending the exclusive after parties was truly a surreal experience.  That same year Barry finally got to work on his first feature film when he was hired to work alongside George Lucas on the latest Star Wars Movie, “Revenge of the Sith.”  During this time, Barry was given the opportunity to travel to Australia and watch them film parts of the movie.  After completing his work up at Skywalker Ranch, Barry along with five other artists formed their own company called The Third Floor.

The company started out with just six people in a small office in Southern California, but over the next decade and a half grew into an international business employing more than 500 employees, spread across offices in Los Angeles, Atlanta, London, and Beijing. It became one of the world’s largest visualization companies in the process.

During those formative years, Barry got the chance to collaborate with some big-name talent on some truly unique projects.  In 2006, he was given a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with his favorite director, James Cameron.  Barry was brought in to help visualize the three-dimensional world of Pandora for Cameron’s new movie, Avatar.  After Avatar was released to worldwide acclaim, Barry along with several other key individuals were awarded the Art Directors “Excellence in Production Design” Award.

In 2007, Barry switched gears briefly to work on one of his favorite video games and supervised a team that helped design sequences for Capcom’s Resident Evil 5. Soon after that, Barry was called back to join in on another blockbuster feature film, this time with legendary director Tim Burton, to help visualize the crazy world of his new movie “Alice in Wonderland.”

Barry later joined forces with Universal Studios to assist them with figuring out their next three rides:  “Harry Potter: Escape from Gringotts”, Fast and Furious: Supercharged” and “The Tonight Show Ride with Jimmy Fallon.”  “Escape from Gringotts” was recognized by the Themed Entertainment Association as one of the best new rides of the year and was awarded a THEA Award for “Outstanding Achievement” of which Barry was a recipient.

In 2015, Lucasfilm flew Barry and his family to spend a year in London, England to work on their next big Star Wars movie, “Rogue One.”  Barry and his team were located at the famous Pinewood Studios, where many James Bond films were shot, and were able to check out all the imaginative props, massive sets and incredible creatures on a day-to-day basis.  Barry was later nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award for his work on the movie.  After having an amazing collaboration with director Gareth Edwards, Lucasfilm asked Barry to continue working on all the remaining Star Wars sequel movies. One of the highlights was being able to work with Ron Howard on “Solo: A Star Wars Story”.

Since finishing those movies, Barry decided to return to his roots and jump back over to television.  For the past five years, he has been designing sequences for one of Apple TV’s highest rated shows “For All Mankind.”  This year marks Barry’s 25th year of working in the industry and the 20th anniversary of his company.