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

"Why Does OLD MOVIE's Visual Effects Still Hold Up?"

This question comes up a lot, usually in regards to films like "Jurassic Park" (1993) and "Transformers" (2007), especially when referring to franchise films. Some folks feel that the visual effects of a successful movie's sequels are "worse" than the original film's, even though the "technology is better". The problem with the premise of this question is that it disregards the human and creative aspects of filmmaking, instead defaulting to "technology is better, why aren't the images better?"... which is a deeply reductive and silly way of looking at the artistic process.

I wrote this tweet in 2023 as a quick attempt to answer the rhetorical question. I think my answer still holds up pretty well. Heh.

•  •  •  •

"Why does OLD MOVIE's visual effects still hold up?"

• shot design
• planning and organization
• taste
• sticking to a plan
• appropriate timeline
• small volume of work
• appropriate budget

These principles are timeless. If you think a visual effects shot looks like crap, the people involved with the movie can point to one or more of these bullet points to indicate the reason.

Please note how none of these bullet points are about technique because making good art is technique-agnostic.

•  •  •  •

I really hope readers don't gloss over that last sentence, because it's fairly important.

Battling Misinformation: "Transformers"

Our visual effects work for "Transformers" (2007) is still being lauded to this day, which is a testament to the amazing talents of the visual effects teams at Industrial Light & Magic under the supervision of Scott Farrar, Russell Earl and Scott Benza.

I frequently see myths about the production timeline of our film, and in the spirit of squashing misinformation, I'd like to address it here.

In a quote tweet responding to someone complimenting our work on the movie, a social media post reads:

The reason the VFX looks so stellar is because ILM began animating for the film in early 2005. They had Two Entire Years to complete the CGI. The industry standard now is a couple months if they're feeling generous.

I've seen a variation of "Two Entire Years" myth several times over the years. This is not true.

Very roughly, ILM's first animation tests took place in May 2006, while director Michael Bay, Farrar, Earl and Benza were still shooting the movie. I started compositing the first transformation shots in the movie in June 2006. Our ILM crew was modest at the start, and grew by September 2006. The movie wrapped filming in October 2006. The movie was released in theaters July 2007. So, roughly speaking, the lion's share of visual effects production took place in less than one year.

Please stop repeating this "two years" business. Yes, generally speaking, we had more time to work on this type of movie than we do these days, but let's not be hyperbolic and repeat the lie that we had more than double the time to complete our visual effects shots than what was true.

An Interview with Todd Vaziri, "Transformers"

Here's an interview that I did last year with Andrew Sibulsky, about my work on "Transformers." There were some really good questions, some of which Andrew culled from reader submissions on various cinema and computer graphics forums.

My favorite part of the interview was this question and answer:

Andrew Sibulsky: Over the last few years ILM has, by and large, produced work of an increasingly realistic manner, almost indistinguishable from live photography. Do you see the possibility of continued growth in the artistry and photorealism of shots, or are we reaching a plateau?

Todd Vaziri: I think the last couple years have been extraordinary for ILM for cranking out really photo-real work that is indistinguishable from live photography, that audiences don’t know what they are seeing – to a higher level than we’ve ever really seen before. I’m really talking about the last few years – "Pirates 2," "Pirates 3," "Mission: Impossible III," "Poseidon," and "Transformers." These films have a quality that goes beyond the 'wow' factor. If you show a normal moviegoer the finals reels of those films, I think that moviegoer would be really surprised at how extensive our work really is. I think people would be shocked at how many effects shots are completely invisible now. I mean, we had over 500 effects shots in "Mission Impossible III," and the average moviegoer probably thought there were a couple of dozen, or so. There’s a new level of photorealism going on here.

And it’s not just ILM – WETA, Sony, Rhythm + Hues, Digital Domain – we’re all hitting this nice stride of creating these amazing characters and assets that are truly believable, in the right context.

Do I see this slowing down or continuing to grow? I absolutely see it continuing to grow, because of the renewed emergence of shot design. Shot design is now the most important aspect of photo-real visual effects.

Let’s look at "Pirates 2," in particular Davy Jones. When you put the talent and the technology that has evolved over the years in computer graphics, there’s really no question that, even a few years ago, we could have achieved the photo-real quality of a Davy Jones. ILM and other companies have done it over the years. But what made Davy Jones so unique? What put it over the top? I firmly believe it was the shot design. Gore Verbinski and John Knoll and Hal Hickel, and most importantly, Bill Nighy – the actor who portrayed Davy Jones – created a methodology that was set up to shoot and animate his sequences, and it was just brilliant; it brought a level of spontaneity and magic to the scenes that would not have been there, had other methods been used.

You can tell, from "Pirates 2" and "Pirates 3" that everything was technically beautiful, but there was really something different, and it was this new way of thinking about shot design, how these shots are created. It wasn’t relying on old techniques, or being lazy and saying ‘We’ll figure it out in later’, after the sets have been struck and after we’ve left the locations. Shot design, from the very beginning of production, is absolutely important and you can see it also in "Transformers." How Michael Bay and Scott Farrar set up these shots in a very smart way, so that when it was time to animate and put our characters into the shots, it felt very normal and felt very natural. That’s what we were trying to accomplish with "Transformers."

The talent and there technology is there, it’s just a matter of how it’s used when it comes to shot design. If shots are planned in advance, or in a smart way, there’s really no limit to what we’re gonna be able to accomplish. And I’m not just talking about digital characters – humanoid creatures – it goes for anything: environments, fantasy worlds, whatever you can imagine, it has to do with shot design. Directors that are good at that are, like I said, Gore Verbinski, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg; they look at these visual effects shots not just as little parts of the film that amaze us, they look at it as part of the process. And when strong visual effects supervisors are there from the beginning, planning out and designing these shots, you’re gonna get some really amazing results.

Read the full interview with Todd Vaziri, Part 1 and Part 2.

Predicting the Visual Effects Oscar, Part 5

This is a follow-up to our continuing series, "Predicting the VFX Oscar Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4."

I updated the 2007 chart to indicate the winner of the visual effects Oscar, "The Golden Compass."

As you may remember from the previous articles in this series, we determined that critical acclaim (as indicated by the Tomatometer rating) was a fairly good predictor of the winner of the visual effects Academy Award.

"Compass's" win throws our theory for a loop. A huge loop. It garnered the least amount of critical acclaim amongst the three nominated films. In 23 years of charting (1984-2006, Part 2 of the series), in years where there were three nominees for Best Visual Effects, the film with the lowest critical acclaim never won the Oscar. In addition, the film with the least box office return never won the Oscar, as well. Thumbing its nose at the historical statistical data, the 80th Academy Awards gave the visual effects Oscar to "The Golden Compass," the film with both the lowest critical acclaim (by a slim margin) and the lowest box office tally, amongst its fellow nominees.


So what happened here? How did the Academy voters circumvent historical precedent? Usually, as our theory surmises, the film that garners the most critical acclaim can ride that momentum of energy into Oscar season, thus influencing the Oscar vote. The most obvious example of this is 2000's "Gladiator," which rode a wave of acclaim and popularity to win the Oscar for visual effects, even when the general consensus in the visual effects community was that other films deserved Oscar's highest honor for visual effects.

Our assumption is that vast majority of the over-6000 Academy voters, as we pointed out in Part 1, are not as industry-savvy as one might think. They are, as history suggests, quite susceptible to aggressive marketing campaigns (think Miramax in the '90s) and pop culture phenomenons ("Titanic," "Forrest Gump"), especially since, as we all know, they don't actually see all the films for which they are voting.

Industry watchers almost unanimously predicted that "Transformers," directed by Michael Bay, would win the visual effects Oscar for several reasons: its celebrated visual effects, its enormous popularity at the box office, and the fact that the movie was generally entertaining. So exactly how did "Compass" claim Oscar gold over the robots in disguise? Here are a few ideas that I've heard over the past few weeks.

Theory 1: The Academy is biased against ILM. This myth, still repeated among some visual effects fans and professionals alike, proclaims that old Hollywood is still fuming at George Lucas, founder of ILM, for his departure from Hollywood, and his hoarding of "Star Wars" riches. The theory also says that Hollywood is tired of ILM 'bullying' the effects community, and after years and years of success, needed to be brought down a notch (which is what caused a 12 year 'drought' of Academy Award wins for ILM). Therefore, Academy voters shunned the ILM productions, "Transformers" and "Pirates 3" and voted for the non-ILM production, "Compass."

This theory is bunk. The general membership of the Academy is not as savvy as one might think. Certainly, they may understand that ILM is an industry leader in visual effects, and that ILM is owned by George Lucas, but I find it highly unlikely that any one Academy voter could tell you which film ILM worked on. This is not the reason "Transformers" didn't win.

Theory 2: The vote was split between "Pirates 3" and "Transformers," giving "Compass" the win. This theory postulates that the majority of Academy voters actually wished that either "Pirates 3" or "Transformers" take home the Oscar, giving a plurality to "Compass."

How would this work? Let's say that 60% of the Academy voters marked either "Pirates 3" or "Transformers" as having the best visual effects of the year, which isn't entirely unreasonable. Well, if that 60% is split right down the middle, that leaves the 40% earning "Compass" with a plurality, and the Oscar win.

Personally, I think this theory is hard to swallow. Both ILM pictures would have to had to earn no greater than 66% of the total vote, with neither film earning more than 32% of the vote, for this theory to hold water. Those are some slim margins, people, and although ILM loyalists would really like to believe it, I just don't think this is true.

Theory 3: "Compass" is the best family-friendly choice. "Compass," on paper, is the most family friendly of the three nominees, starring cute child actors, the handsome Daniel Craig, the beautiful Nicole Kidman, and-- gasp! -- cute, cuddly, talking animals. In fact, one cannot forget a similar upset from 1995, when "Babe," the G-rated family-friendly film defeated the overwhelming odds-on favorite, "Apollo 13." What did "Babe" have that "Apollo 13" didn't have? Cute, cuddly, talking animals.

Although all three films carried the PG-13 rating, "Transformers" and "Pirates 3" were hard PG-13's, in my opinion, with some serious mean streaks of violence and intensity, while "Compass'" action sequences were less intense.

When presented with a choice of these three films-- three films that the majority of voters probably did not see-- the elder Academy members may have thought to themselves, "Which of these three films could I safely take my kids to?" or even "Which of these three films could I safely take my grandchildren to?"

Their answers probably went something like this: "Well, I don't really want to take them to another long 'Pirates' movie, and that 'Transformers' has a lot of gunplay and violence... I think I'll choose the Nicole Kidman picture." A checkmark goes besides "The Golden Compass" for visual effects.

Theory 4: The Academy doesn't want to reward Michael Bay. The poster child for 'all that is wrong in today's cinema' is Mr. Bay, according to the Hollywood establishment, and the theory states that the Hollywood establishment would go out of its way to avoid rewarding Bay by not voting for the film that bears his name.

Bay's crimes include: legitimizing quick MTV-style editing; making films that celebrate explosions, cars, car chases, and boobs; creating the world's shoutiest movies, where a quiet moment is an anomaly; creating dizzying shaky-cam action sequences with so much frenetic camera movement whose ultimate outcome is confusing and disorienting, leaving the audience wondering 'what the heck is going on?'; creating one-dimensional characters; essentially filming misogynistic, racist, jingoistic, product-placement-dripping, military recruitment movies with only as much integrity and honesty that 13 year old boys can handle... and all along the way, driving home with giant dumptrucks full of cash. Bay's cinematic transgressions have been well-documented; here are a few articles from AVClub that succinctly state cinephiles' attitudes towards Bay: their review of his DVD commentary of "The Island," their review of "Bad Boys II," one, or their review of "Transformers."

Personally, I think it's a combination of Theories 3 and 4.

What do you think? Or, is it insulting to the crew and talent behind "The Golden Compass" to even theorize why its fellow nominees didn't win the Oscar?

And, just to re-restate the previously stated, this entire discussion about "Predicting the Oscar" is framed by our statistical and quantifyable analysis of the Academy Awards nominees and winners over the past three decades. I am not making any kind of subjective statements about which film actually deserved the award for innovation and quality of visual effects.

More from the VES Awards

Here's a whole boatload of photos from last week's 6th Annual VES Awards. (Make sure you read the first article, "VES Awards: ILM Sweeps.") Teams from Industrial Light & Magic won six awards; four for "Transformers" and two for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

It was an honor to represent the entire team at ILM that worked so tirelessly on "Transfomers." And here's the full ILM credit list for the film - every single of of them (and many that did not make the final list) worked their tails off to make the film look "awe-inspiring, eye-popping, way-cool, astonishing, flawless, and out of this world."

The Kodak Theater Ballroom, on February 10, 2008.

The VES Award statuette.

The party starts.

Accepting the award for Outstanding Compositing in a Feature film is the "Transformers" team, represented by Pat Tubach, Todd Vaziri, Mike Conte, and Beth D'Amato.

"Transformers" compositing supervisor Pat Tubach.

"Transformers" sequence supervisor Todd Vaziri.

"Transformers" sequence supervisor Mike Conte.

"Transformers" roto/paint supervisor Beth D'Amato, Pat Tubach, Todd Vaziri and Mike Conte.

The statuette is strong enough to support my giant head.

Presenter John Knoll starts off the show with a fabricated story about working with Steven Spielberg. He left the stage with his pants on fire.

Accepting the award for Outstanding Animated Character in a Feature Film is the Davy Jones team from "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End": Hal Hickel, Maia Kayser, Marc Chu and Jakup Pistecky. The award was presented by "Transformers" director Michael Bay.

The ILM/Kerner team from "Transformers" accepting the award for Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Film: Dave Fogler, Brian Gernand, Alex Jaeger and Ron Woodall.

This shot from the desert highway sequence from "Transformers" won the award for Best Single Visual Effect of the year.

Shawn Kelly, animator extraordinaire, accepting the award.

Accepting the Best Single Visual Effect of the Year award, the brilliant Mike Jamieson (who lit and composited the shot), Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, and Shawn Kelly.

Now they're being silly.

Our visual effects supervisor, Scott Farrar, accepting the award for Best Visual Effects for "Transformers."

Our visual effects producer, Shari Hanson, accepting the award for Best Visual Effects for "Transformers."


Our animation supervisor, Scott Benza, accepting the award for Best Visual Effects for "Transformers."

Associate visual effects supervisor Russell Earl joins Shari, Scott, and Scott.

Benza looks like he's all-too-familiar with that pose.

"Transformers" director Michael Bay. Insert your own caption.

Visual effects wizard Dennis Muren attempts to conjure up some movie magic, right there on the podium.

And there's Megan Fox.

Even more photos and information can be found at the following links.

• Visual Effects Society Coverage
• IESB Coverage
  
• For a complete list of winners, click here.
• Variety article: "Transformers," ILM Light Up VES
• The Hollywood Reporter article: "Transformers" Tops VES Nods

VES Awards: ILM Sweeps

That's me, hangin' onto the VES Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture.

This weekend, ILM cleaned up at the 6th Annual VES Awards, which took place in the Kodak Theater Ballroom in Hollywood. "Transformers" took home four awards, and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" garnered two awards.

It was a terrific night for visual effects fans. Steven Spielberg was honored with a lifetime achievement award, presented by Dennis Muren, and award presenters included Brad Bird, John Knoll, Michael Bay, "Transformers" star Megan Fox, Douglas Trumbull, Harrison Ellenshaw, and many more. There that night were other legends of visual effects having fun, like Ken Ralston, Richard Edlund, Jim Morris. Best of all, I had the opportunity to catch up with a lot of old friends that I worked with in Los Angeles, like my mentor and friend Van Ling, my Pixel Magic cohorts George Macri and Ray Scalice, Reid Paul, Bonnie Kanner, Johnathan Banta, and all the ILM'ers and... boy, it was a dizzying night! And it was over too soon.

Here we are accepting our award for Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture for "Transformers": compositing supervisor Pat Tubach, sequence supervisors Todd Vaziri and Mike Conte, and roto/paint supervisor Beth D'Amato.


Working on "Transformers" was an amazing opportunity for me, and a genuine honor to have been working side by side with such a great team at ILM. Big kudos go out to visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar and the brilliant visual effects producer Shari Hanson for putting together a magnificent team and for setting just the right tone for this immense project.

The complete list of the "Transformers" wins:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture
TRANSFORMERS
Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Russel Earl, Scott Benza

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year
TRANSFORMERS - Desert Highway Sequence
Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Shawn Kelly, Michael Jamieson

Outstanding Models or Miniatures in a Motion Picture
TRANSFORMERS
Dave Fogler , Ron Woodall , Alex Jaeger, Brian Gernand

Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture
TRANSFORMERS
Pat Tubach , Beth D’Amato , Todd Vaziri , Mike Conte

For a complete list of winners, click here.
Variety article: "Transformers," ILM Light Up VES
The Hollywood Reporter article: "Transformers" Tops VES Nods

I'll be posting a lot of photos and stories from that night in the near future. And here it is! Click here for more photos.

Predicting the Visual Effects Oscar, Part 4

Now that we know the Academy Award nominees for Best Visual Effects, I suppose we should run the numbers and see if we can predict who will win the Oscar, based on critical acclaim and box office earnings. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Oh, boy. You should probably read Predicting the VFX Oscar Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)

So let's run the numbers for 2007, where the nominees are "The Golden Compass," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," and "Transformers."

Our conclusion in Part 3 was "although it can be wrong, critical acclaim is generally a better predictor of the winner of the Academy Award for visual effects than box office popularity." According to our hypothesis, "Transformers" should win the Oscar, because it has the highest Tomatometer rating (our standard of judging critical acclaim), at 57%.

In addition, Michael Bay's film edged out "Pirates 3" at the box office, too. And on that note, here's an interesting tidbit. "Transformers" had the highest acclaim, and the largest box office among the nominees. Over the last 23 years prior to 2007, 11 years we saw a single film dominate both acclaim and box office, among the nominees. The visual effects Oscar went to that dominating film 10 out of those 11 years.

The films that earned both the highest critical acclaim among other nominees, and the highest box office among the other nominees, since 1984:

• 2004, "Spider-Man 2" (won the Academy Award)
• 2003, "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" (won)
• 2001, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (won)
• 2000, "Gladiator" (won)
• 1997, "Titanic" (won)
• 1996, "Independence Day" (won)
• 1992, "Batman Returns" (did not win)
• 1991, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (won)
• 1988, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (won)
• 1986, "Aliens" (won)
• 1985, "Cocoon" (won)

So, you could say, that according to history and our little theory, "Transfomers" has more than a good chance of winning the Academy Award. We'll find out on February 24! Now, let's just hope there will be an actual awards ceremony.

Read on - here is Part 5.

Academy Award Nominations Announced

The 80th Annual Academy Awards nominations were announced this morning:

Academy Award Nominees for Visual Effects

THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier

TRANSFORMERS
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

Click here for the complete list of nominees.

VES Awards Announces Nominees

From the VES website:

Los Angeles, January 7, 2008 - The Visual Effects Society (VES) today announced the nominees for the 6th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects in over a dozen categories of film, television, commercials and video games. Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 5, 2008 by numerous panels of VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank.

“We received hundreds of submissions from around the world and we are proud to present nominees that push the boundaries of how visual effects can enhance the storytelling process,” says Jeff Okun, VES Chair. “Looking at the level of complexity and creativity of this year’s nominees, it is clear that the VES is the single most important pool of talent, experience and knowledge in the visual effects world.”

The nominees for the 6th Annual VES Awards are the following:
(feature film categories listed only)

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture
I AM LEGEND - Janek Sirrs, Mike Chambers, Jim Berney, Crys Forsyth-Smith
TRANSFORMERS - Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Russel Earl, Scott Benza
THE GOLDEN COMPASS - Michael Fink, Susan MacLeod, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - John Knoll, Jill Brooks, Hal Hickel, Charlie Gibson
SPIDER-MAN 3 - Scott Stokdyk, Terry Clotiaux, Peter Nofz, Spencer Cook

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture
RATATOUILLE - Michael Fong, Apurva Shah, Christine Waggoner, Michael Fu
ZODIAC - Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Janelle Croshaw, Chris Evans
WE OWN THE NIGHT - Kelly Port, Julian Levi, Brad Parker, Olivier Sarda
THE KITE RUNNER - David Ebner, Les Jones, Todd Perry, Leif Einarsson
BLADES OF GLORY - Mark Breakspear, Randy Starr, Shauna Bryan, Kody Sabourin

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year
TRANSFORMERS - Desert Highway Sequence
Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Shawn Kelly, Michael Jamieson
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - Jack and Davy Duel
John Knoll, Jill Brooks, Francois Lambert, Philippe Rebours
300 - Crazy Horse Sequence
Chris Watts, Gayle Busby, Kirsty Millar
SURF’S UP - Riding the Visual Effects Tube
Rob Bredow, Lydia Bottegoni, Daniel Kramer, Matt Hausman
SPIDER-MAN 3 - The Birth of Sandman
Scott Stokdyk, Terry Clotiaux, Spencer Cook, Doug Bloom

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture
SPIDER-MAN 3 - Sandman
Chris Yang, Bernd Anger, Dominick Cecere, Remington Scott
THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP - Crusoe
Richard Frances-Moore, Martin Hill, Marco Revelant, Daniel Barrett
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END - Davy Jones
Hal Hickel, Marc Chu, Jakub Pistecky, Maia Kayser
ENCHANTED - Pip
Tom Gibbons, James W. Brown, David Richard Nelson, John Koester
TRANSFORMERS - Optimus Prime
Rick O'Connor , Doug Sutton, Keiji Yamaguchi, Jeff White
I AM LEGEND - The Infected Leader
David Schaub, Marco Marenghi, Josh Beveridge

Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture
SURF'S UP - Chicken Joe
David Schaub, Moon Jun Kang, Brian Casper, Andreas Procopiou
SHREK THE THIRD - King Harold
John Cleese, Guillaume Aretos, Tim Cheung, Sean Mahoney
BEOWULF - Beowulf
Keith Smith, Scott Holmes, Pericles Michielin, Kenn McDonald
SURF'S UP - Cody
David Schaub, Pete Nash, James Crossley, Shia LaBeouf
RATATOUILLE - Colette
Janeane Garofalo, Jaime Landes, Sonoko Konishi , Paul Aichele

Outstanding Effects in an Animated Motion Picture
BEOWULF - Dragon Chase
Theo Vandernoot, Vincent Serritella, Rob Engle, Pericles Michielin
SHREK THE THIRD - Effects
Matt Baer, Greg Hart, Krzysztof Rost, Anthony Field
RATATOUILLE - Food
Jon Reisch, Jason Johnston, Eric Froemling, Tolga Goktekin
SURF’S UP - Riding Wave - CG Style
Rob Bredow, Daniel Kramer, Matt Hausman, Danny Dimian
RATATOUILLE - Rapids
Darwyn Peachey, Chen Shen

Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Motion Picture
SWEENEY TODD - The Old Bailey
Raf Morant, Julian Gnass, Nakia McGlynn, Christine Wong
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - The Maelstrom
Frank Losasso Petterson , Paul Sharpe , Joakim Arnesson , David Meny
ZODIAC - Washington and Cherry
Wei Zheng, Greg Szafranski, Janelle Croshaw, Karl Denham
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX - The Hall of Prophecy
David Vickery, Philippe LePrince, Trina Roy, Jolene McCaffrey
RUSH HOUR 3
Barry Williams, Robert Weaver , Jay Cooper , Masahiko Tani
I AM LEGEND - Times Square Hunt
Daniel Eaton, Blaine Kennison, Ron Gress, Daveed Shwartz

Outstanding Models or Miniatures in a Motion Picture
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - Practical and Digital Ships
Ken Bailey, Bruce Holcomb, Carl Miller , Geoff Heron
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD - Freeway Sequence - F35 Miniature and Effects
Ian Hunter, Scott Schneider, Scott Beverly, John Cazin
TRANSFORMERS
Dave Fogler , Ron Woodall , Alex Jaeger, Brian Gernand
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX - Hogwarts School
Jose Granell, Nigel Stone
SPIDER-MAN 3 - Building / Crane Destruction Miniature and Effects
Ian Hunter, Scott Beverly, Forest Fischer, Raymond Moore

Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture
TRANSFORMERS
Pat Tubach , Beth D'Amato , Todd Vaziri , Mike Conte
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - Death of Beckett
Lou Pecora, Joel Behrens, Ted Andre, Kevin Lingenfelser
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END
Eddie Pasquarello , Katrin Klaiber, Jen Howard, Shawn Hillier
I AM LEGEND - Seaport Evacuation
Darren Lurie, John Sasaki, Rita Kunzler, Fish Essenfeld
THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP - Crusoe
Areito Echevarria, Gareth Dinneen, Norman Cates, Caterina Schiffers
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX - Hall of Prophecy and Comp Shots
Jolene McCaffrey, Jelena Stojanovic, Victor Wade, Adam Pashke

Outstanding Special Effects in a Motion Picture
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
John Richardson, Stephen Hamilton, Richard Farns, Stephen Hutchinson


http://vesawards.com/

Hand Held Cameras

I love how author David Bordwell launches into a topic and digs deep. One of his terrific articles is "Unsteadicam Chronicles," from his website. I don't necessarily agree with his viewpoints, but I adore how deeply involved he gets with his material.

Personally, I thought the camerawork and cinematography of "The Bourne Supremacy" was brilliant. (Unfortunately, I haven't seen "Ultimatum" yet.) Like J.J. Abrams' "Mission: Impossible III," the Paul Greengrass' Bourne films, as well as Doug Liman's original Bourne film, are point-of-view superspy films, and the camerawork reflects this. In these cases, I believe that the handheld work does not camouflage or hide shoddy staging, set design, or acting (as his article suggests). The camera is moving as fast as our hero spy, and sometimes the speed is so intense that makes a scene abstract. I'm thinking primarily of "Supremacy's" car chase, with frequent cutting to blurry, intense Bourne-point-of-view shots.

However, as a general rule, I think is it paramount for a filmmaker to set up the geography of an action scene so that the audience can follow along with the choreography.

James Cameron is the undisputed master of orchestrating complex action sequences that take place over large expanses of space, and yet the geography is expertly laid out for the audience, allowing the audience to fully enjoy the sequence (see "Terminator 2," "True Lies," "Titanic," and "Aliens"). The opposite is true of Michael Bay, whose style suggests that every single shot is a hero shot, and its context is irrelevant ("Transformers," "Bad Boys II," "Armageddon").

As you may have guessed, I have a few articles in the pipeline concerning this subject. We'll be examining the construction of an action sequence from Cameron's "True Lies," as well as a scene from Bay's "Transformers," to illustrate how to create (and destroy) an audiences' sense of geography for an action sequence.

• David Bordwell, Part I: "Unsteady Chronicles"
• David Bordwell, Part II: "Insert Your Favorite Bourne Pun Here"
• David Bordwell, Part III: "I Broke Everything New Again"
  

Wow

"Transformers" has crossed $700,000,000 in global ticket sales. [Boxofficemojo.com]


Image from the always hilarous, Defamer.com.

Some Photos from Adapt

I found some photos from my "Transformers" presentation at the Adapt Conference.

Here's I am, acting like I know what I'm talking about.

Here's I am taking questions after the hour and a half presentation. I was told there were around 1000 people in the room.

After the presentation, many people came up to the podium with questions... and for autographs. Stop laughing.

Emile Ghorayeb, one of Adapt's founders, and me.

Some photos courtesy of CGSociety and CGChannel.

Linkorama:

• Adapt 2007 website
• CGSociety's coverage of Adapt 2007
• VFXWorld article on Adapt 2007 [registration required]
  
• VFXWorld preview of Adapt 2007 [registration required]