Session 5: Roundtables - John McKay - Chief Executive of POW Studios

John McKay – Producer and Supervising Sound Editor

John McKay is a creative expert and an entrepreneur. He has twice been nominated for a Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Golden Reel Award (2002, 2003) for outstanding achievement in sound editing in film, television, and across the entertainment industry. His career in film editing, sound design and mixing spans nearly five decades and includes Peter Jackson’s epic The Lord of the Rings series and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the supervision of multiple television series, and a slew of New Zealand-based feature and short film productions. In 2000’s, in addition to collaborations with Peter Jackson, he worked on multiple local productions. He has won New Zealand Film Awards, and his work includes iconic NZ features. John created Virtual Katy software, an award winning “sync & conform” software toolkit for post production in 2001—adopted by over 300 clients worldwide including major TV networks and leading film companies. John sold the company (Virtual Katy Development Limited) in 2009. Over the past decade, John has fostered a creative partnership with Yi Animation of Guangzhou, China and POW Studios completed their third collaboration in 2024 with the follow up film to 2021’s highly successful,  I AM WHAT I AM. At the beginning of his career John Sound Designed New Zealand's first Animated Feature film " Footrot Flats". With Marie Silberstein produced a 9 episode animated series for TVNZ "What Will I Be Today?" in 2024.