Norman Newberry(1942-2020)

American art director, production designer and specialist in digital technology whose career spanned more than half a century. Norman Newberry was the son of Bill Newberry, a qualified architect who worked in Hollywood as art director under contract at Universal from 1955 to 1958. Like his father, Norman graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Notre Dame. He started in the film industry as a set designer in the sixties (again, like his father, at Universal studios). Following a three-year stint of military service with the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions (the "Seabees"), he resumed work in Hollywood as art director of episodic television (The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) , Logan's Run (1977) ) before graduating to feature films in 1981. His work culminated with the blockbuster motion picture Avatar (2009). In the capacity of virtual production art director, Newberry helped create the digital sets that made up the imaginary planetscape of Pandora. Explaining his role in an interview, he said: "The director is holding a virtual camera seeing the 3D set. Instead of being built by carpenters and painters, the sets were built by digital artists. Basically, I was managing the digital artists while making sure they delivered what James Cameron wanted onstage and that it worked in the film. You also have to produce a physical reference so the actor's performance matches the digital set".

As Executive Art Director and Design Director for Universal Creative, Newberry later focused his talents on theme park design in the U.S. and Japan. A longstanding member of the Art Directors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he was awarded a prize by the former in 2010 for Excellence in Production Design for the movie Avatar, followed in 2018 by a (shared) Lifetime Achievement Award.