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Visual Effects Oscar Shortlist

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the who-deserves-it dept.

nurble writes "The short list of films being considered for a best visual effects Oscar was released today. The biggest news is that the final two installments of the Matrix trilogy were snubbed in favor of Universal Studios' "The Hulk," New Line Cinema's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," 20th Century Fox's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," Universal's "Peter Pan," Buena Vista Pictures' "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," Warner Bros. Pictures' "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and Fox's "X2". Finalists will be announced following the effects "bake-off" on January 21st."

2 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Pixar Renderman by KoolDude · · Score: 5, Informative


    It's interesting to note that a good number of these movies use Pixar's Rendering software. That being said, I am surprised that Finding Nemo is not in the list. Don't they consider animations for the visual effects Osar?

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  2. Re:ROTK by malducin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Absolutely. ROTK will be robbed if they don't get it.

    I guess you don't know how the Academy operates. The VFX Branch (composed of VFX pros) select the 7 Bake-Off finalists and then the VFX membership votes the 3 nominees. But it's the entire Academy membership (actors, producers, directors, etc.) votes on all the winners. Which is why sometimes you have some surprises, upsets and funky selections.

    X-Men 2 didn't strike me as actually using all too many rendered effects.

    I believe they had over 500 VFX shots nothing to sneeze about done by a variety of studios. Many were of the invisible kind like set extensions (the interior of the X plane, Cerebro was a partial set, Wolverine's claws in many shots, etc.)

    Even the lava flows looked quite realistic, and that's something that's fairly difficult to get right, I hear.

    Well yes and no. CG fluid dynamics for production are relatively recent (Cast Away, Perfect Storm, etc.). Do remember the CG lava in Shrek. Also there have been other ways to do it. ILM used methacyl (a thick viscous fluid) on a miniature set for Congo. The methacyl was later color corrected and composited on the live action sets.

    Overall the ROTK work was extremely impressive and more polished than the previous work. There are some minor rough spots but overall it was superb.