Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX

Vanity Fair asked me if I wanted to talk about visual effects in a video, and it was my great honor to show off some of ILM’s terrific work over the years.

watch Todd Vaziri on "ILM's VFX Secrets Behind Star Wars, Transformers & More" on YouTube

My goal was to highlight the artistic process of visual effects. Movies like the ones I highlight in the video are crafted by hundreds of artists, technicians and production folks, all working together to achieve the vision of the director. I’m so proud to have worked with such amazing crews over the years.

In the video, I wanted to emphasize the teamwork aspect of the work that we do. To support that, here are the full credit lists of everyone at ILM who worked on the projects I discuss in the video:

“Rogue One” (2016), All ILM credits


“Dungeons & Dragons” (2023), All ILM credits

“Skeleton Crew” (2024), All ILM credits

“Star Trek: Into Darkness” (2013), All ILM credits

“Transformers” (2007), All ILM credits

“The Force Awakens” (2015), All ILM credits

I want to thank everyone at Vanity Fair for making me feel so welcome and comfortable, especially director Adam Lance Garcia, editor Matthew Colby and everyone at ILM PR for this opportunity.

In the visual effects world, we frequently gripe about the prevalence of misinformation in the public discourse about “CGI” and the role of visual effects in Hollywood, but rarely do any of us tell our own stories about innovation, creativity, problem solving and teamwork to the general public. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to tell some of our stories about what we do.

I'm really proud of my final few words in the video:

Digital visual effects is just like any other step in the filmmaking process. There's really not a lot of fundamental difference between, say, what the costume designer does, what the editors do, what the set designers do. We're all trying to work together to solve problems and tell the story using light and images the best we can within the time that we have. It takes a lot of coordination to get all of this stuff done and sometimes hundreds and hundreds of digital artists working behind the scenes.

There's a perception out there that digital effects are a black box, that it just gets shipped off and the directors are just handed this work. [That] couldn't be further from the truth. We work directly with filmmakers to achieve their vision.

Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair Visual Effects:

https://youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?si=3SE9Fw_GsYS5sZMY

The List of 10, 86th Academy Awards

It's bake-off time! David S. Cohen of Variety has the scoop on the list of films that will be going to the visual effects bake-off for this year's 86th Academy Awards.

• Elysium
• Gravity
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
• Iron Man 3
• The Lone Ranger
• Oblivion
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Thor: The Dark World
• Pacific Rim
• World War Z

The list of 10 films was determined by the Executive Committee of the Academy's visual effects branch (which, in the past, has been populated by 40 people).

The 10 films will each present a 10 minute reel of finished work at the bake-off in January to the full membership of the Academy visual effects branch, along with a quick introduction and post-reel Q&A. After the 10 films have presented, all members of the visual effects branch vote for the five Oscar nominees. Ultimately, the full Academy membership votes for the winners of the Academy Award in every category.

Like last year, the two-step process of an initial list of 15 films whittled down to 10 films was scrapped.  Although the branch used the 15-to-10 process for the 84th Academy Awards, which gives the Executive Committee a chance to catch up on all 15 films, the accelerated rate of the Academy schedule for the 85th and 86th awards meant that the final bake-off list needs to be available in the first week of December of each year.  The 15-to-10 process started for the 80th Academy Awards (for which "The Golden Compass" ultimately won the Oscar).

Congratulations to all of those participating in the bake-off.

Read Cohen's story here.  FXGuide also covered the announcement here.

We've Been Busy

... finishing up this one film.   Oh, look, here's a new teaser for a film that has some pretty nifty visual effects.   direct YouTube link

"Star Trek Into Darkness" Teaser

The first teaser for J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness" has arrived.  You can watch it in HD at Apple Trailers, or on YouTube.

An exclusive, nine-minute preview of the film will be shown in IMAX 3D theaters in front of "The Hobbit", starting December 14.  For a list of theaters showing the extended preview, click here.

The film features visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic, supervised by VFX supervisor Roger Guyett.  Below are a few random images from the teaser.

Images selected by Randomizer Mountain Lion Edition software.