Michael Owens is a Visual Effects Supervisor and Second Unit Director of Hollywood films who spent over twenty years at Industrial Light & Magic. He worked as an effects camera operator early in his career with ILM, during which time he served as assistant cameraman on the production of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (credited as Mike Owens). He later directed the second unit of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Owens began working at ILM in 1982. His work as an ILM effects cameraman can be seen in such films as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Return of the Jedi (1983), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He was promoted to Visual Effects Supervisor of ILM in 1987. The first project he supervised was The Witches of Eastwick (1991), , for which he won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best Special Effects.
Since then, Owens has overseen the special effects of several films for ILM, including The 'Burbs (1989), The Doors (1991), Hudson Hawk (1991), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Space Cowboys, Gangs of New York, and Van Helsing (2004). He then worked with Digital Domain as effects supervisor and second unit director on Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). His work on Gangs of New York earned him nominations from the BAFTA Awards, the Satellite Awards, and the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, while the effects for Flags of Our Fathers won him a VES Award and a second nomination from the Satellite Awards.