Brook Willard

Vice President of Science Communications

Brook Willard is an American/Canadian filmmaker who specialized in high-budget features and high-risk stunt action sequences before setting his sights on space.

In his film career, Brook played a key foundational role in ushering in the digital age of cinema. From hardware to software, UX to final product, Brook took on a seminal role in establishing the core protocols, first principles, and overall system design that are ubiquitously adopted in film production to this day.

Many of these new technologies required in-situ development, on set, in real-time. This put Brook in a position to be considered a “must-hire” on the largest film sets in the world, resulting in a flurry of credits ranging from Star Trek to Star Wars, from summer blockbusters to Oscar winners.

As these digital technologies became more commonly adopted on sets globally, Brook was driven to seek new challenges and more extreme edge-cases for what was possible in the field of image capture. Novel camera rigs, high-risk shot setups, car chases, plane crashes, and million-dollar explosions became his specialty.

In 2010, Brook consulted extensively with the manufacturer that developed NASA’s HDR ground cameras for the Shuttle program.

In 2013, Brook led the Digital Imaging Technician department for Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Cosmos.”

In 2017, Brook collaborated with NASA to capture the full solar eclipse on its path of totality.

In 2023, Brook co-founded Making Space, a creative agency telling the story of humans in space.

Today, as the fingerprints of Brook’s legacy remain on film sets around the world, Brook shifts his attention up and out, continuing to push the boundaries of visual storytelling both on-world and off.