Cinesite (Europe), which recently completed work on Warner Bros.’s V FOR VENDETTA (opening March 17), has hired Quentin Miles as animation director. Ben Shepherd recently joined the team as visual effects supervisor and is currently working on X-MEN 3 for Twentieth Century Fox.

Miles, one of the industry leading character animators, has a long credit list covering feature films, television projects and commercials. Miles was animation supervisor on Hallmark DINOTOPIA, for which he won an Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects and a VES Award for Best Character Animation in a Live Action Televised Program. Most recently, he was 3D supervising animator on the VES award-winning GUINNESS RHYTHM OF LIFE commercial.

Having recently been nominated for a VES award for Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture for his work on HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, Shepherd worked with many high profile vfx supervisors, including Jimmy Mitchell and John Bruno.

Alexander Williams, who joins Cinesite in the spring as animation supervisor, will immediately start work on Walt Disney UNDERDOG. Williams has already worked with director Frederik Du Chau on RACING ??STRIPES. A talented and experienced animator, Williams has an impressive credit list in a career so far spanning 18 years.

Cinesite md Antony Hunt commented: ‘I am very excited about the outstanding new 3D talent at Cinesite and am looking forward to them building to new levels of world class 3D creativity at Cinesite.’

For V FOR VENDETTA, Cinesite created, among other things, the sequence in which famous London landmarks are blown up to the music of the 1812 OVERTURE. Cinesite’s work involved weeks of architecture and building research, construction of the massive 30-foot-high, 10th-scale models at Shepperton Studios, model unit photography and compositing of the models into background footage of London.

London-based Cinesite (www.cinesite.com), which last year worked on ROME, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, among others, is currently working on X-MEN 3, THE OMEN 666, THE DA VINCI CODE, STORMBREAKER and 10,000 B.C.