Pitof

At the beginning of his career, visionary French special-effects supervisor Pitof earned accolades for his ability to bring the warped imaginations of French directing team Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro to life on the screen. He worked with the duo on the cannibal comedy "Delicatessen" (1991) and "The City of Lost Children" (1995), a mysterious fable about a crazed scientist who kidnaps children to collect their dreams. Both films employed a striking visual style that was heavily influenced by British production designer Norman Garwood's collaborations with oddball director Terry Gilliam. When Jeunet and Caro went their separate ways, Pitof signed on to supervise effects for the former's first Hollywood-backed outing, "Alien: Resurrection." Though some critics praised the film's art direction and visual fluourishes, the plot--which saw a badly cloned Ripley acquiring horrific alien attributes--left much to be desired. Pitof made the leap to directing with the visually stunning supernatural mystery "Vidocq" (2001), which was based on his own adaptation of a detective story set in 1830s France. His first film in English, "Catwoman" (2004), is commonly regarded as one of the worst superhero movies of all time. Though perhaps under-recognized outside of the visual-effects community, Pitof's work continued to influence a younger generation of artists, especially during the resurgence of interest in steampunk in the early 2010s.