JLee MacKenzie
Artist & Filmmaker
ABOUT
JLee MacKenzie is an American film director, animator & wood-scroll artist who completed his Master of Fine Arts Degree at USC School of Cinematic Arts on a George Lucas Scholarship. He studied motion capture animation at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, and holds a BFA in Creative Media from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.
JLee is the founder of MacKenzie Drive Productions, a film production and motion capture animation studio focused on virtual production, Unreal Engine, and the cross-roads between technology, human performance and animation.
His films have been selected by film festivals around the world including Whoopi Goldberg's animated shorts at Tribeca Film Festival, The American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and won the 2021 Jury Award at Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris.
In 2018 he was the recipient of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Award, and completed his film The Greatest Night, which toured with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 he received the James Goldstone Emerging Filmmaker Award from the Vermont International Film Foundation for his biographical film Hidden Blueprints, which was co-produced by Julie Pacino. And in 2015 he was a Screenwriting Fellow to Stowe Story Labs & won Gold in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards for his screenplay Flicker.
JLee is a filmmaker who works in any genre or medium with a compelling story, often focused on childhood, magical realism, comedy and uplifting stories about overcoming life challenges.