2015 Oscar Nominees Announced

Click here for the official list. I'll do a follow-up post soon with my predictions, but I'll call Star Wars as the VFX winner right now, with Mad Max a close runner-up. Hopefully I can beat last year's score of 19/24.

BEST PICTURE

• The Big Short
• Bridge of Spies
• Brooklyn
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Martian
• The Revenant
• Room
• Spotlight

BEST ACTOR

• Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
• Matt Damon, The Martian
• Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
• Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
• Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

BEST ACTRESS

• Cate Blanchett, Carol
• Brie Larson, Room
• Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
• Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
• Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Christian Bale, The Big Short
• Tom Hardy, The Revenant
• Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
• Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
• Sylvester Stallone, Creed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
• Rooney Mara, Carol
• Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
• Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
• Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

DIRECTING

• Adam McKay - The Big Short
• George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road
• Alejandro G. Iñárritu - The Revenant
• Lenny Abrahamson - Room
• Tom McCarthy - Spotlight

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Anomalisa
• Boy and the World
• Inside Out
• Shaun the Sheep Movie
• When Marnie Was There

COSTUME DESIGN

• Carol
• Cinderella
• The Danish Girl
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Revenant

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Amy
• Cartel Land
• The Look of Silence
• What Happened, Miss Simone?
• Winter on Fire

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• Body Team
• Chau, Beyond the Lines
• Claude Lanzmann
• A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
• Last Day of Freedom

MAKEUP AND HAIR STYLING

• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
• The Revenant

ORIGINAL SONG

• "Earned It" - Fifty Shades of Grey
• "Manta Ray" - Racing Extinction
• "Simple Song #3" - Youth
• "Til It Happens to You" - The Hunting Ground
• "Writing's on the Wall" - Spectre

ANIMATED SHORT

• Bear Story
• Prologue
• Sanjay's Super Team
• We Can't Live Without Cosmos
• World of Tomorrow

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

• Ave Maria
• Day One
• Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
• Shok
• Stutterer

• 
  

SOUND MIXING

• Bridge of Spies
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• The Martian
• The Revenant

SOUND EDITING

• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Sicario
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• The Martian
• The Revenant

FILM EDITING

• The Big Short
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Revenant
• Spotlight
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Embrace of the Serpent
• Mustang
• Son of Saul
• Theeb
• A War

ORIGINAL SCORE

• Bridge of Spies
• Carol
• The Hateful Eight
• Sicario
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Bridge of Spies
• The Danish Girl
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Martian
• The Revenant

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Ex Machina
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Martian
• The Revenant
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• The Big Short
• Brooklyn
• Carol
• The Martian
• Room

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Bridge of Spies
• Ex Machina
• Inside Out
• Spotlight
• Straight Outta Compton

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Carol
• The Hateful Eight
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Revenant
• Sicario

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' receives Academy Award Nomination for "Best Visual Effects"

Congratulations to the Visual Effects team on X-Men: Days of Future Past on their Academy Award nomination. It was a great project to work on and I was happy with the result.

2015 VFX "Bake-Off" Recap

This weekend I attended the Visual Effects "Bake-Off" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. It was fascinating and entertaining look at the best visual effects in film for 2014, as presented by the visual effects supervisors and vendors who produced the final results. Previs was mentioned at times as well, which was nice. At this point in filmmaking, previs settles so many storytelling, art direction, and composition decisions early on, which allows the final vendors to concentrate more of their limited time on producing photorealistic effects.

Going in to the bake-off, the finalists to choose from for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects are (bold = projects I worked on):

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Maleficent
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Transformers: Age of Extinction
X-Men: Days of Future Past

After watching so many incredible shots throughout the bake-off, it was clear this is a very tough, competitive year. I have a feeling Marvel Studios will emerge with only one nominee. Transformers will probably be left out again. I have not seen Maleficent, but I know it did very well at the box office, which makes it a strong contender against other kid-friendly movies like Guardians and Godzilla. When all the dust clears, I think the finalists will be:

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar

Final 10 Visual Effects Contenders Announced

From Oscars.org

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Maleficent
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Transformers: Age of Extinction
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The ones I worked on are in bold. Nolan's Interstellar might be a favorite for the statue, but the Academy also loves it some CG main characters, so Dawn of the Planet of the Apes stands a good chance too. Personally, I loved how Godzilla came out, and will be especially rooting for that one (although the variety of work done for Night at the Museum 3 was quite challenging to film as well).

Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem wins a VES Award

The theme park ride I worked on two years ago, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, won a Visual Effects Society Award last night for 'Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project.' Congratulations to the 'Despicable Me' team at The Third Floor, inc. and to the team at Illumination Entertainment, including award recipients Heather Drummons, Joel Friesch, Troy Griffin, and Chris Hummel. One of these days I'd love to see the ride in person...

Click here for earlier Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem posts.

2013 Annie Awards

The Annie Awards were held here in town tonight at UCLA. Wreck-It Ralph received Best Animated Feature, and two projects I worked on at The Third Floor also won: The Avengers, for Visual Effects in a Live Action Production (awarded to ILM); and the Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem theme park ride won for Animated Special Production (awarded to Illumination). Congratulations to the people at those companies who saw those projects through to a successful end! It was a lot of fun to be involved with each of them.

Now I've got to start seeing all those great films! Deadline has the full list of Annie winners here.

Oscar Nom for The Avengers!

'Marvel's The Avengers' (couldn't leave off the "Marvel's?") was announced today as garnering a Visual Effects nomination at the Oscar site. Exciting! A good number of people across many companies were involved with its visual effects, so I get a kick to think of all the other people out there who are also happy with this news. Although it's probably an underdog against The Hobbit, since WETA and Peter Jackson were 3/3 for Visual Effects Oscars with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Hobbit was nominated in two other categories this year, I'll be crossing my fingers for it on Oscar night.

Rockstar Games wins "Best Animation" award for Max Payne 3

Congrats to all of the animators who worked on it. I'm proud to have briefly been among you on that project in 2010, and it's great to see your work pay off like this!



The trailer:

The Complete List of Awards for Red Dead Redemption

This weekend Spike TV held its annual Video Game Awards. Red Dead Redemption was nominated in the following categories:

Game of the Year
Best Song in a Game ("Far Away")
Best Original Score
DLC of the Year
Studio of the Year (Rockstar San Diego)
Character of the Year (John Marston)
Best PS3 Game
Best Action Adventure Game
Best Graphics
Best Performance by a Human Male (Rob Wiethoff)

When all the dust had cleared, Red Dead won the coveted 2010 Game of the Year award, along with Best Song, Best Original Score, and DLC of the Year. In what has been the most incredible year of all my time working on video games, I can't think of a better way to wrap up 2010. All three games I made at Rockstar San Diego went on to be nominated in their respective categories at the VGAs, but Red Dead Redemption was the first one to take the grand prize. I want to take this space to congratulate the massive team that made it such a great work of quality, and thank the fans who have supported the game since its release. It's been a very special thing to be a part of, and I'm happy to be able to look back on RDR2 and see that it got its due.

Update: There are many more awards rolling in. Here is an ongoing update for the other awards Red Dead Redemption has won for 2010:

X-Play's Best of 2010 Awards:
Best Action/Adventure Game
Best DLC

Machinima 
Game of the Year
Best Narrative
Most Compelling Character
Best Original Score
Best Sound Design

ShortList
Best Game of 2010

The Times of London
Game of the Year

GamesRadar
Game of the Year
Reader's Choice Award
Runner Up: Most Graphics
Runner Up: Cutscenes You Actually Want to Watch

IGN
Funniest Game (Undead Nightmare)

GameSpot (nearly a clean sweep, taking awards in the following categories)
Game of the Year
Best DLC
Best Story
Best New Character
Best Atmosphere
Best Original Music
Best Voice Acting
Most Improved Sequel
Best Writing/Dialogue
Best Ending
Best Action/Adventure Game
Best PS3 Game
Best Xbox 360 Game

Game Developer's Choice Awards
Game of the Year
Best Technology
Best Game Design
Best Audio