The Academy Awards selections in Visual Effects category have always been keen on choosing films with massive amounts of CGI work. This year is no different as the five films selected are abundant with CGI. Recent winners of the award include "Hugo," "Inception," "Avatar," and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." If the trend still holds only one film this year has a chance of winning.
The Hobbit: An Unexpect Journey- Peter Jackson's team Joe Letteri, Christopher White, Eric Saindon and David Clayton of WETA are not new to this category as Jackson's films "The Lord of Rings" Trilogy and "King Kong" have all won this award. They have also won for James Cameron's work on "Avatar." Jackson revealed in an interview that one of the most challenging parts of the film was shooting in 3D and then editing in the visual effects. While "The Lord of the Rings" redecessors won this award, "The Hobbit" looks to go away empty handed as the film is only nominated for three awards and was not as popular with critics and audiences.
Life of PI- Nominated for Best Picture, "Life of Pi" is the front-runner to win the category because of its creation of Richard Parker the tiger. Visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer stated that he had never been on such a long production. He said their challenge was to portray an ocean that was as much a character as Pi and creating the tiger of Richard Parker. Westenhofer said the production team had a real life tiger on set but they never put it on the life boat. Westhofner was last nominated for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and won in 2007 for "The Golden Compass." His chances of winning the Oscar are great as he has already won the Critics' Choice award and five other precursor awards.
Marvel's The Avengers- "The Avengers'" team lead by Janek Sirr has previously been nominated for "Iron Man 2" and won for "The Matrix." "Sirr's work for "The Avengers" was no surprise in this category as it won The Hollywood Award for Visual Effects and ILM, Industrial Light Magic has a great history at the Oscars. The creation of the Hulk and the Iron Man's suit were some of the most impressive uses of CGI work. For the Hulk, the visual effects team stated that they worked closely with Mark Ruffalo and Joss Whedon to give the Hulk the most realistic performance. The film may not win the award as the Oscars have a history of snubbing comic book films such as "The Dark Knight" in this category.
Prometheus-The "Prometheus" team is led by supervisior Richard Stammers who is new to the category and has never been nominated before. The film which takes place in an alien planet and was said to have 1400 shots with Visual effects. Stammers stated that Ridley Scott emphasized the planet and the ship and wanted to create an environment that was uninviting. The team took six to eight months to create the holograms in the film which were also made up of 250 additional shots. If "Life of Pi" loses the award, "Prometheus'" sheer scope could easily sway the Academy voters.
Snow White and the Huntsman-The "Snow White" team led by Academy Award winner Neil Corbould designed a darker world for the story. For the Troll in the film they did a lot of pre-visualization before getting started and the actors had to work with their environments as there was no green screen on set. For the Mirrorman they stated that the challenge was to make the mirror interact with Charlize Theron and while they shot the film they used a statue with a camera to see Theron's movements.
Predictions-"Life of Pi" will most likely win this category as it is nominated for Best Picture and it had the feat of creating a movie that relied on a CGI character.
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