84th Academy Awards – 'Best Visual Effects'

Role of Visual Effects:

Visual effects (commonly shortened to Visual F/X or VFX) are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or simply impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer generated imagery (CGI) have become increasingly common in big-budget films, and have also recently become accessible to the amateur filmmaker with the introduction of affordable animation and compositing software.

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Voting Procedures:

The Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee shall review a reminder list of all eligible motion pictures and through a series of meetings shall cast secret ballots to select a maximum of ten productions for further consideration. Achievements shall be judged within the parameters defined by the Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee and on the basis of:

1. consideration of the contribution the visual effects make to the overall production and
2. the artistry, skill and fidelity with which the visual illusions are achieved.

Following the running of film excerpts and discussion relative to the achievements, voting shall be conducted as follows:

1. A ballot shall be cast by all members of the Visual Effects Nominating Committee present, ten productions in consideration.

2. Five productions shall be selected using reweighted range voting to become the nominations for final voting for the Visual Effects Award.

3. Final voting for the Visual Effects Award shall be restricted to active and life Academy members.

Starting in 2010, there will be five nominations.  No more than four people may be nominated for a single film.

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Eligible Films:

Initially, 15 films were vying for nominations in this category, however only 10 of them were considered ‘finalists’, which I have marked in bold:

Captain America: The First Avenger Cowboys & Aliens
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sucker Punch
Super 8
Thor
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The Tree of Life
X-Men: First Class

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Nominations:

·         Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – Tim Burke,David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson

·         Hugo – Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann and Alex Henning

·         Real Steel – Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor and Swen Gillberg

·         Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett

·         Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Scott Farrar, Scott Benza,Matthew E. Butler and John Frazier

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Nominee Run-Down:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 

Meet the Team:

·         Tim Burke: 4^th nomination, 1 previous win for ‘The Gladiator’

·         David Vickery: 1^st nomination, however, he has received 2 awards from the Visual Effects Society for his work on ‘Sherlock Homes’ and ‘The Dark Knight’.  He was also on team for ‘Cloverfield’.

·         Greg Butler:  1^st nomination, however, Greg received a Visual Effects Society Award for his work on ‘The Lord of the Ring: Return of the King’.  He was also on the team for ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’.

·         John Richardson: 6^th nomination, 1 previous win for ‘Aliens’.  He is the only one to work on all 8 Harry Potter movies.

My Two Cents:

This is a power house team and you have to take one very important thing into consideration here.  The final installment of Harry Potter was fantastic; PLUS, four of the Harry Potter films have been nominated in this category… however, they have yet to bring home gold.  And being a huge Harry Potter fan, I would really like to see them win as a nod to their efforts for the entire series.

And besides my crazed fandom, Deathly Hallows is a PERFECT candidate to win.  The ultimate goal, in my opinion, is for Visual Effects to seamlessly compliment the story… is there is no story, then the Visual Effect come across heavy handed and the movie, as a whole, becomes pointless. 

Harry Potter is far from pointless and for a film series that needed a healthy dose of Visual Effects, the story always came first, which is why I’m not surprised that this film has an aggregated score of 96% from Rotten Tomatoes.

Hugo

Meet the Team:

·         Rob Legato: 3^rd nomination.  Won previously for ‘Titanic’ and nominated for ‘Apollo 13’.

·         Joss Williams: 1^st nomination.  However, he received British Academy Award nomination for ‘Sleepy Hollow’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’.  He also won an Emmy for his Visual Effect work on the mini-series ‘The Pacific’.

·         Ben Grossmann: 1^st nomination.  Also worked on ‘Sin City’ and ‘Spiderman’.

·         Alex Henning: 1^st nomination.  Also worked on ‘Sin City’ and ‘The Golden Compass’.

My Two Cents:

This group, as a whole, it not quite as seasoned as the Harry Potter crew, but that means nothing.  These guys have already won the Satellite Award (International Press Academy) for Best Visual Effects and I would probably call them the front running is a very close footrace.

Hugo is obviously a strong contender, what with their 11 nominations and 94% score from Rotten Tomatoes.  It has a very good shot at taking home gold!

Real Steel

Meet the Team:

·         Erik Nash: 2^nd nomination.  Previously nominated for ‘I, Robot’.

·         John Rosengrant: 1^st nomination.  Previously worked on ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’.

·         Danny Gordon Taylor: 1^st nomination.  Previously worked on ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ and ‘Transformers 1 & 2’.

·         Swen Gillberg: 1^st nomination. 

My Two Cents:

In the world of Visual Effects, I would describe this team as being pretty green.  Plus, it is pretty obviously as to why they were assembled: almost all of them have experience with CGI robots.  I guess you could call them the ‘Robot dream team’.  However, I don’t’ think they have much chance of winning.  Although the film was ultimately successful at the box office… all the components just didn’t come together.  As I said before, the Visual Effects can’t stand alone.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Meet the Team:

·         Joe Letteri: 6th nomination, 4 wins: ‘Avatar’, ‘King Kong’, ‘LOTR: Return of the King’, and ‘LOTR: Two Towers’

·         Dan Lemmon: 1^st nomination.  Weta.

·         R. Christopher White: 1^st nomination.  Weta.

·         Daniel Barrett: 1^st nomination.  Weta.

My Two Cents:

Okay, one might look at these guys and say the majority of this team is too green to make a realistic play for the award.  However, the three newbies have been working for Joe for years… in fact, they have contributed to almost all of the movies Joe has received awards for… and being that their all from Weta… it’s really hard to discount their talent. 

In addition, the movie is pretty darn good.  With a 83% score from Rotten Tomatoes, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is nothing to sneeze at… and could be a wild card at the big dance!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Meet the Team:

·         Scott Farrar: 6th nomination, 1 win: ‘Cocoon’.  Also nominated for ‘Backdraft’, ‘A.I.’, and ‘Transformers’.

·         Scott Benza: 2^nd nomination.  Previously nominated for ‘Transformers’. 

·         Matthew E. Butler: 1^st nomination.

·         John Frazier: 9^th nomination, 1 win: ‘Spiderman 2’.  Also nominated for ‘The Perfect Storm’, ‘Twister’, and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End’.

My Two Cents:

Listen… I’m not going to discount anyone’s talent… but a turd sandwich is a turd sandwich.  And I don’t care how many Oscar nominations a movie gets, cause get what?  It’s still a turd sandwich.

The Visual Effects in this movie might be great… and the guys behind it are terrible talented… however, the movie was NOT successful.  There was no story to marry the effects with; it was just another over indulgent Michael Bay schlock-fest.  And in my opinion, it has no business being nominated for anything.

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Snubs:

Above I shared the names of the original 15 films vying for this award, and frankly, I was shocked at two of the movies listed didn’t make the official nominations… heck, they didn’t even make the final ten!

Both films were effects driven, however those effects never got in the way of the real star: the story.  Both movies showed what a perfect marriage between visual effects and story SHOULD be; which is what I thought the Academy intended to honor.

In fact, as of this post, the two films in question are ranked 3^rd and 14^th on my list of 2011 Films.

They are ‘Super 8’ and ‘Sucker Punch’.  The fact that these two movies were over looked so the Academy could honor ‘Real Steel’ and ‘Transformers 3’ is insane to me.

Furthermore, the Academy has really been neglecting Visual Effect for animated movies.  The Visual Effects Society, who seems to be the same voting populous as the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch, have been honoring the visual effects in animated movies for the last 9 year!  ‘The Adventures of TinTin’ used the same motion capture technology as 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', however, it was left out because the actors inhabited an animated world instead of a live-action world. 

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Oscar Trends:

Above, I mentioned the Visual Effects Society (VES).  Well, for the last 9 year, they have been giving out their own awards in various Visual Effect categories.  Every year, the team that takes home the Oscar was also nominated for the VES’s “Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture’ award.  AND, for 7 of those 9 years, the team who has won the VES award went on to win the Oscar.

Now, going into the 10^th year of the VES awards, only three of the Oscar nominated films are nominated for this, very specific, VES award: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2’, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’. 

Incidentally, in case you are wondering… ‘Hugo’ is only nominated for ‘Supporting Special Effect in a Motion Picture’ and no film that isn’t considered being an ‘Effects Drive Motion Picture’ has ever won.

Also…  ‘Real Steel’ is not nominated for a VES award at all.

For these reasons I believe this is going to be a showdown between ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’… however, due to the fact that the franchise has yet to be honored in this category, I’m going to give the egde to:

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Prediction: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson

For my complete (weighted) list of Oscar Predictions click here!