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When Landon Bootsma isn’t rubbing elbows with the likes of Mel Gibson, he is in Vernon creating special effects for Hollywood movies.

Bootsma worked on the latest Gibson production, Flight Risk, which stars Mark Walhberg and is now showing at the Galaxy 7 theatre.

He is currently working with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on the Netflix movie RIP.

And while you won’t see Bootsma in front of the camera, you will definitely see his work on screen.

Bootsma co-owns Vernon-based Gneiss Stuff – Boutique FX Studio and, depending on the project, he could have a couple dozen people working for him.

“We do post production and visual effects for feature films and series,” Bootmsa said. “We did a lot of work on Flight Risk.”

Bootsma’s job is to make something that is not real, look real.

Like a car crash where the production company does not want to actually crash a car, or a plane crash scene without actually crashing a plane.

“Most of the core team are in Vernon and Kelowna,” he said, adding technology allows them to work remotely on projects.

Bootsma also works closely on location with movie makers to achieve the desired scenes.

“In some cases, we help them through principal photography when they film it and then afterwards we would get those particular shots and we would improve upon them to achieve the creative result the director is looking for,” he said. “A scene that lasts 10 seconds could take us three months.”

Except for a stint as a Vernon realtor, Bootsma has been making movie magic for more than 20 years.

Bootmsa is currently doing post production work on RIP and has other productions lined up.

“We are also working on a Disney project,” Bootmsa said. “We have quite a bit going on.”

Bootsma credits the people he works with for the company’s success.

Working remotely is also a boon as he and his employees can work from smaller centres like Vernon which is a nice place to raise his two children while still being able to work on Hollywood productions.