Panels and Workshops

Variety senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay hosts the fifth annual 10 Artisans to Watch panel, spotlighting the behind-the-scenes artists and rising stars in their fields who were invaluable to the year’s best films.

About the host
Jazz Tangcay is the senior artisans editor at Variety and covers all crafts below-the-line. She is also on the Awards team analyzing the Emmy Award and Academy Award races. Prior to joining Variety, Jazz worked at Awards Daily, where she covered film and TV and wrote reviews and analysis on the Emmys and Oscar races. She is also a member of the Gold Derby experts.

Honorees

Anne Jimkes, supervising sound editor, The Mosquito Bowl
Anne Jimkes is a sound designer, music editor, and Emmy Award-nominated re-recording mixer. Over the past several years, she has been a lead creative contributor at Soundelux, working closely with acclaimed sound designer Wylie Stateman. Her credits include American Primeval, Painkiller, The Idol, Euphoria, and Dept. Q. Most recently, Jimkes co-supervised the sound mix on Peter Berg's upcoming Netflix feature The Mosquito Bowl, collaborating directly with post-rock band Explosions in the Sky to curate the film's original score.

Aulo Licinio, animation supervisor, Project Hail Mary
A world-class animator, Aulo Licinio is renowned for his creative flair and outside-the-box thinking. Bringing to life creatures and characters that are by turns loveable, grotesque, photorealistic, and otherworldly, Licinio’s body of work is diverse but cohesive in its ability to convince, astound, and garner a deep emotional response. Central to the world building of Fantastic Beasts, His Dark Materials, and Peter Pan and Wendy, he is as happy taking beloved characters from the page to the screen as starting from scratch to craft hitherto unimagined creations. His latest project translated faceless alien Rocky from page to pixel in Amazon MGM’s Project Hail Mary.

Landon Lott (B.F.A., sound design, 2010), illustrator, Pluribus, Sugar
An art director and concept artist from New Orleans, Landon Lott began his journey at SCAD in the university’s pre-college Rising Star program. After his degree in sound design first brought him onto film sets, he gravitated toward the art department, where he worked his way through model making, set design, and concept illustration before moving into art direction. Lott’s film and TV credits include Logan, Godzilla vs. Kong, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Challengers, Eddington, Pluribus, and Sugar. His work has received multiple awards and nominations, including three Art Directors Guild Award wins for his work in film and commercials.

Blair McClendon, editor, Clarissa
Blair McClendon is an award-winning film editor, writer, and filmmaker whose work spans acclaimed narrative features and documentaries. His credits include Aftersun, The Assistant, The Last Showgirl, Union, and After Sherman. His latest work includes Clarissa, directed by Arie and Chuko Esiri, which premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Recognized for his distinctive approach to cinematic storytelling, McClendon was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film in 2026. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Republic.

Adam Newport-Berra, director of photography, Club Kid, The Invite
Adam Newport-Berra is an Emmy Award and ASC Award-winning cinematographer born and raised in the woods of Oregon — where he continues to live. A graduate of New York University, Newport-Berra has lensed a range of acclaimed features, shorts, television, music videos, and commercials. His credits include The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Invite, Club Kid, The Bear, Euphoria, and his Emmy-winning work on The Studio. In 2019, Variety named him one of its Artisans Elite. Newport-Berra’s commercial work has earned multiple Cannes Lions, and his music video collaborations include Kendrick Lamar, Adele, Miley Cyrus, and Kanye West. 

Raül Refree, composer, La Bola Negra
Raül Refree is a Barcelona-born composer, musician, and producer whose work moves between cinema, contemporary music, song, and experimentation. Over three decades, he has developed a distinctive musical language shaped by curiosity, deep listening, and a constant desire to explore beyond genres and conventions. His work for film, television, and theater includes La Mesías; Entre dos aguas; Un año, una noche; Muyeres; and La Bola Negra. His scores have earned him two Gaudí Awards for Best Original Music and the Spanish Academy of Music Award for Best Soundtrack Album. Alongside his work for the screen, Refree has built a singular career collaborating with artists like Rosalía, Lee Ranaldo, C. Tangana, Guitarricadelafuente, Niño de Elche, and Ricky Martin.

Jessica Ronane, casting director, Elsinore, Artificial
British casting director Jessica Ronane has more than two decades of experience casting productions for screen and stage. A close collaborator of director Luca Guadagnino, Ronane has casted his films Queer, After the Hunt, and the upcoming Artificial. Her other film and TV credits include Elsinore, Afonso’s Smile, The Woman in Cabin 10, Mickey 17, Good Grief, Emma., The Kid Who Would Be King, True Detective: Night Country, and The Amazing Mr. Blunden. She is a three-time Artios Award nominee and a three-time winner of the United Kingdom’s Casting Directors’ Guild Awards. Ronane has also cast more than 20 stage productions, including Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Glass Menagerie, and The Oresteia.

Allie Shehorn, makeup and hair department head, Obsession
Allie Shehorn is an accomplished makeup and special effects artist whose work spans film, television, and independent productions. Known for her versatility in beauty, character, and practical effects makeup, her credits include Babylon, Rebel Moon, Mean Girls, Fall, and Obsession. A graduate of Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles, Shehorn brings a distinctive combination of artistic creativity and technical expertise to her craft, helping filmmakers bring memorable characters and cinematic worlds to life.

Grace Snell, costume designer, Sense and Sensibility
Grace Snell is one of the most exciting costume designers working out of the United Kingdom today, with a rare ability to move seamlessly between period, contemporary, and highly stylized worlds. Her most recent films highlight this agility: the period Sense and Sensibility and the genre-driven To Make Ends Meat. Snell is a three-time winner of the British Independent Film Award for Best Costume Design, for Pillion, The Souvenir, and The Souvenir: Part II. Her other films include The Eternal Daughter, Mogul Mowgli, and The Outrun.

Danny Vermette, production designer, Backrooms
Danny Vermette is a Vancouver-based production designer who has worked across film and television since the early 2010s. His credits include Sweet Virginia, Hollow in the Land, The Island Between Tides, Ballistic and the Edge of Sleep, Longlegs, The Monkey, Keeper, The Young People, and Backrooms. Vermette’s approach is practical and location-driven, favoring real spaces over constructed sets and shaping them through precise, minimal intervention — emphasizing texture, spatial clarity, and tonal restraint to create environments that feel lived in and grounded while quietly supporting performance, camera movement, and narrative tension.