New article for Influx Magazine

I adapted my last blog post into an article for Influx Magazine about this year's Visual Effects Oscar winner. The article is called "Interstellar and the VFX Oscar: What History Tells us about how Much the Academy Loves Space Movies." I recommend it to anyone interested in Oscar History and who loves space movies. Please give the link a visit and leave a comment if you enjoyed it. Thanks!

2015 Oscar Recap/Space-Themed VFX Winners of the Past

Sunday night was the 87th Academy Awards, an event that always provides plenty of pomp, some touching tributes, passionate speeches, so-so jokes, and several "train wreck" moments. It looks like the ratings weren't great this year, and there seemed to be little interest by the Academy in mixing up the format to address the same complaints you always hear about the ceremony (running time, pacing, caliber of jokes). Out of all the nominees, Birdman's far-out concept, dream-like cinematography (by back-to-back winner Emmanuel Lubezki), and terrific performance by Michael Keaton (one of my favorite actors) made it easy to root for in the Best Picture category. It was being heavily promoted last year when I was working at the Fox Studios lot, and I'm glad to see so many others enjoyed it. Fox proved to probably have the best 2014 out of all the studios, coming in #1 with market share, earning the most Oscar nominations, and winning the Best Picture award. The cherry on top was a music tribute to the studio's 1965 box office smash and five Oscar-winning The Sound of Music (a mural of Julie Andrews in those iconic Swiss Alps still hangs at the studio lot).

Since I entered the Oscar pool at work this year, I paid extra attention to who was winning at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards, the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTAs) Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards. In a year with many heavy favorites, the "Best Visual Effects" winner seemed harder to determine. Director Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar ended up taking home the Academy Award, which not only surprised those in the VFX industry who assumed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes would win, but also broke Todd Vaziri's "Predictinator," a formula specifically devised to predict all of the VFX Oscar winners from 1989 to the present day. The formula weighs the factors of critical acclaim, box office returns, total nominations, release date, whether the movie was a sequel or not, the caliber and type of CG creatures it contains, and actor prestige, and predicted the dark horse space comedy Guardians of the Galaxy would win the award.

"Predictinator, you are flawed, and imperfect! Execute your prime function!"

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (another movie with lots of creature animation) had won the VES Award earlier this year, which was viewed by many to be a strong contender. The voting body of the VES Awards are visual effects artists who are well-informed of the latest technology and have extremely critical eyes toward this aspect of filmmaking. Before the Oscars, I read a post by Todd which took a closer look at how good a predictor the VES Awards are for the VFX Oscar, and it turns out that the BAFTAs have been slightly better since 2002 when the VES Awards began.

Even though it won the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects, a possible knock on Interstellar's chances at getting the Academy Award was that Gravity won last year for Best Visual Effects, and an argument could be made that it would be unlikely that two movies with the same setting of space would win back-to-back. Despite this nagging thought and a clear Predictinator pick for Guardians, I sided with Interstellar, which had strong Las Vegas odds and a BAFTA win that could not be ignored. I ended up winning our Oscar pool by one point for a total of nineteen correct picks out of twenty-four.

My #Oscars picks from Friday. Time will tell how they pan out... pic.twitter.com/PtELYPN1yi
— Josh Lange (@THEJoshLange) February 23, 2015

With a two-year trend now established for space movies winning the Best Visual Effects Oscar, I became curious about how the genre had done historically throughout the Oscars, including back in the early years when the award was for "Special Effects" and "Special Achievement in Visual Effects." How many times had space-themed movies won? How many years had one or more been nominated? Did the Academy tend to reward the genre once it became nominated?

I returned to the familiar sight of the Visual Effects Oscar winners Wikipedia page, which was the main resource back when I wrote my "VFX Oscar Elite" post. I counted how many years that a story involving outer space had been nominated for Best Visual Effects (or its equivalent), and then compared it to its fellow nominees for those years. I kept track of how the "terrestrial" movies (ones that did not significantly involve outer space) did in these years as well. The breakdown is below:

bold  space-themed winner
blue  year with multiple space-themed nominees
red  terrestrial beat a space-themed nominee
purple  terrestrial beat two space-themed nominees

2014: Interstellar
2013: Gravity
2012: Life of Pi
2011: Hugo
2010: Inception
2009: Avatar
2008: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2007: The Golden Compass
2006: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2005: King Kong
2004: Spider-Man 2
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2001: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2000: Gladiator
1999: The Matrix
1998: What Dreams May Come
1997: Titanic
1996: Independence Day
1995: Babe
1994: Forrest Gump
1993: Jurassic Park
1992: Death Becomes Her
1991: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1990: Total Recall (uncontested)
1989: The Abyss
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1987: Innerspace
1986: Aliens
1985: Cocoon
1984: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
1983: Return of the Jedi (uncontested)
1982: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial 
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1980: The Empire Strikes Back (uncontested)
1979: Alien (4 space nominees)
1978: Superman (uncontested)
1977 ("Best Visual Effects" from this year onward): Star Wars
1976 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): King Kong
1975 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): The Hindenburg
1974 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): Earthquake
1973 NO AWARD GIVEN
1972 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): The Poseidon Adventure
1971 ("Best Visual Effects"): Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1970 ("Best Visual Effects"): Tora! Tora! Tora!
1969 ("Best Visual Effects"): Marooned
1968 ("Best Visual Effects"): 2001: A Space Odyssey
1967 ("Best Visual Effects"): Doctor Dolittle
1966 ("Best Visual Effects"): Fantastic Voyage
1965 ("Best Visual Effects"): Thunderball
1964 ("Best Special Effects"): Mary Poppins
1963 ("Best Special Effects"): Cleopatra
1962 ("Best Special Effects"): The Longest Day
1961 ("Best Special Effects"): The Guns of Navarone
1960 ("Best Special Effects"): The Time Machine
1959 ("Best Special Effects"): Ben-Hur
1958 ("Best Special Effects"): Tom Thumb
1957 ("Best Special Effects"): The Enemy Below
1956 ("Best Special Effects"): The Ten Commandments
1955 ("Best Special Effects"): The Bridges at Tokyo-Ri
1954 ("Best Special Effects"): 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1953 ("Best Special Effects"): The War of the Worlds (uncontested)
1952 ("Best Special Effects"): Plymouth Adventure
1951 ("Best Special Effects"): When Worlds Collide
1950 ("Best Special Effects"): Destination Moon
1949 ("Best Special Effects"): Mighty Joe Young
1948 ("Best Special Effects"): Portrait of Jennie
1947 ("Best Special Effects"): Green Dolphin Street
1946 ("Best Special Effects"): Blithe Spirit
1945 ("Best Special Effects"): Wonder Man
1944 ("Best Special Effects"): Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
1943 ("Best Special Effects"): Crash Dive
1942 ("Best Special Effects"): Reap the Wild Wind
1941 ("Best Special Effects"): I Wanted Wings
1940 ("Best Special Effects"): The Thief of Baghdad
1939 ("Best Special Effects"): The Rains Came

#Interstellar winning Best #VFX at the #Oscars2015 makes it the 19th space-themed movie in #Oscar history to win that award.
— Josh Lange (@THEJoshLange) February 23, 2015

In seventy-four years of the award's existence, a space-themed movie has won for Best Visual Effects nineteen times and lost twelve times. Twenty times in the last thirty years there has been at least one nominee of this kind. Not only have there been multiple back-to-back years of space movie winners, there was even a four-year streak between 1977-1980 where the visual effects of space movies were apparently irresistible to the Academy. Life of Pi has been the only terrestrial movie which was able to win the Best Visual Effects Oscar in a year with multiple space-themed nominees.

On the flip side of these wins, there have been some notable losers with a space theme: Star Wars Episode I and II, The Avengers, Prometheus, Apollo 13, Alien 3, Predator, 2010, Starship Troopers, and more. Transformers movies, Star Trek movies, and Star Wars prequel movies have never won in their seven total nominations. Interestingly, Star Trek movies have only lost to other space movies. Three times out of seven did a terrestrial movie beat a Star Wars, Star Trek, or Transformers movie (The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Hugo). To summarize, when space-themed movies get nominated for the Best Visual Effects Academy Award, history shows that they win 61.3% of the time (19/31). If they are not a Transformers movie or Star Wars prequel, they beat a "terrestrial" movie 67.9% of the time (19/28).

Some other things I noticed:

1) Comic book movies are almost all doomed to lose the Best Visual Effects Oscar, with a mere two wins out of thirteen nominations. A record-setting three comic book movies were nominated this year, and all came up short. All three Iron Man movies lost--two of those three times to terrestrial movies. The Avengers lost, despite its space content and plentiful CG aliens. Every Batman movie has lost, and a Superman movie only won in an uncontested race. Both Spider-Man nominees were in contested races though, and one ended up winning, however that win was in a year with no space nominee.

2) Peter Jackson movies are two-for-three in defeating space-themed contenders for a Best Visual Effects Oscar. Christopher Nolan movies are two-for-three in this category.

3) Since 2002, the BAFTAs are now +2 over the VES awards in predicting the VFX Oscar winner.

4) The Return of the Jedi is probably the most intentionally-funny space movie to win the Best Visual Effects Oscar, which is saying something (and no, the exploding head moment in Total Recall doesn't count). As it does in the other Oscar categories, the Academy sides overwhelmingly with dramas over comedies. So much in fact, that it's amazing the outright-goofy Guardians of the Galaxy was considered a contender for the award at all.

Conclusion:

After taking this long look from another angle at the history of the Best Visual Effects Oscar award, I have learned that space-themed movies tend to do very well overall. Audiences have now seen black holes, worm holes, exploding planets, and aliens of every shape and size, and it seems like everything they can imagine has been covered at this point. Conversely, there is practically no limit to what the VFX industry can visualize at this point in its history, and the sci-fi genre will never cease to be interesting to moviegoers, so there will assuredly be many more nominees and winners. Not only did Interstellar's lead actor Matthew McConaughey have "actor prestige," but its Oscar-winning supporting cast of Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, and Ellen Burstyn, (did I miss anyone?) might have been worth a bit more weight in Todd and his wife's formula to tilt Interstellar over Guardians of the Galaxy, whose cast only had Oscar nominees as far as I can tell. This could also be seen as a win for the space drama genre over the (all too rare) space comedy. These factors might be worth considering when Todd pops the hood on his Predictinator and looks around for parts to upgrade.

"You're gonna need a bigger wrench."

Steven on Steven: Studying Staging with Spielberg and Soderbergh

I'm late on this, but I wanted to reblog this Steven Soderbergh post about his exercise to study the "staging" (moving the camera and its subjects) of Raiders of the Lost Ark, after removing all the color and replaced the audio with a techno track. This is a great way to study staging, and it's part of why it's great to watch old black and white movies, even if you're making the latest Hollywood visual effects-oriented films.

The definition of unforgettable staging. 

I recently watched a 1950 noir film by Elia Kazan called Panic in the Streets, which used particularly inventive staging back when camera movement was much more limited. In order to keep his long takes interesting, Kazan repeatedly blocked his scenes out so that characters would move close up and far away from the camera. This resulted in a single continuous shot that would overtime go from a wide shot to a medium shot to a close up and even back to a wide shot at times. There is an uncomplicated scene with just two characters, where the husband (Richard Widmark) goes around their bedroom to retrieve different parts of his Naval uniform, where this is done well. The simple things, if done well, can make all the difference with staging.

A fantastic noir outbreak disaster movie, by Elia Kazan.

 Although I cannot be 100% sure Soderbergh has seen Panic in the Streets, I would venture to guess he has, because it was a notable early "outbreak disaster film" that could have served as useful reference for Soderbergh's own outbreak movie Contagion. Watching any of these movies would greatly help a student of film understand how to build tension with advanced staging. Although I've heard it attributed to Ingmar Bergman and not David Fincher as Soderbergh does, the notion that there is only one "best" way for a scene to be staged is a high standard, and one that should be aspired to by all filmmakers.

Steven Soderbergh's own take on the outbreak disaster genre.

New trailer for X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and a spoilers S.O.T.U.

There was so much movie news the other week, I nearly forgot to write about the new trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past. It was the second Bryan Singer movie I worked on, after Jack the Giant Slayer, and since the X-Men comics series were my favorites growing up, working with these characters was the culmination of much geeky childhood enthusiasm (like The Avengers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles projects were). The movie will be overflowing with entertainment for fans of the comic, especially those who read the "Days of Future Past" series.

Speaking of geeky enthusiasm, the guys over at Schmoes Know noticed an unusual trait of the video: it managed to focus on the movie's broad themes, without spoiling any of the actual plot. That's not easy to do, and a relatively rare thing in the field of trailers. Historically, trailers have been heavy on spoilers and intentionally throw the juiciest parts of a movie out to attract viewers. The trailer for 1949's Casablanca is a typical example from its time, using heavy-handed devices like a campy voiceover, sensationalized score, and dominating overlaid text:

Considering the movie is among the best of all-time (and has the best screenplay of all time, according to story gurus like Robert McKee), it's almost odd the marketing for it seemed so desperate--at least compared to the more refined design tastes of today.

Flash-forward fourteen years, and you have Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds trailer (1963), which went completely in the opposite, minimalist direction. Using clips from the movie in a straightforward manner, the intensity it contains comes directly from the movie itself:


When the 1980s hit, computers were offering sleek new digital aesthetics, and the trailers of that decade relied on their eye-grabbing flash to push a new era of action films:


Contemporary advertising companies have taken the art of the movie trailers to another level, in part by creating multiple versions tailored for different outlets. Theatergoers are often treated to a two-to five-minute long trailer, often mimicking a three-act structure of its own. Like this trailer for The Dark Knight Rises shows, today's trailers can be long and story-driven without relying on much smoke and mirrors from the editing of the trailer itself. The quiet opening works well, and Hans Zimmer's score closes it out nicely at the end:



Now, onto the topic of spoilers. Working in previs is entirely about being shown the most dramatic and action-oriented sequences of a movie. You are exposed to a disproportionate amount of movie spoilers, and if you're lucky, they are for movies you are especially excited to see. Squaring this with my passion for helping make big Hollywood movies has not always been easy, and there are times where I try not to have certain moments given away for films I did not work on and am not familiar with the original material (comics, books, etc). It was fantastic to watch something like "Battlestar Galactica" without knowing any of the plot points ahead of time, but I doubt I'll care too much about knowing who the real "Winter Soldier: is when I get my socks knocked off by it.

Marketing for modern movies relies on new material being put out to keep websites abuzz with interest. At some point this is bound to reveal too much. How much is too much in your eyes?



_____
For further reading on trailers, the New York Times article "Dissecting a Trailer: The Parts of the Film that Make the Cut" is a must-read.

Buzzfeed's 12 Posters that Totally Spoiled the Movie

Martin Scorsese's 2013 Jefferson Lecture at the John F. Kennedy Center

So as much as I enjoyed pouring over Oscars and box office history for last week's Top Ten List of VFX films, last year Martin Scorsese gently and solemnly reminded us all that such thinking is ridiculous and unfortunate. Of course, he's right. I loved this speech and hope you will too:



I watched Hugo last week and was blown away by its genius. If only Scorsese could be around for another 100 years to make movies.

Some choice moments:

• Vertigo was nearly lost forever (partially because of Hitchcock)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey ripped off two movies that came out just before it, and was critically panned
• Socrates thought reading and writing was a threat to true wisdom, and we shouldn't see film going digital as a similar threat
• His mother brought him to see Duel in the Sun as a kid, even though it was on the Catholic banned list. It has one heck of an ending:

Unearthing the VFX Oscar Elite: My List of the "Best" All-Time Visual Effects Films

This week my longtime friend and film historian Paul Booth sent me an email with a fun request: "I would love a Top 10 Visual Effects films you feel I need to see."

If this question isn't "film geek" bait, I don't know what is. A list of the "best" visual effects movies is of course entirely subjective, and there are many ways to create one. Past Academy Award winners for "Best Visual Effects" seems like a great place to start, and there is a place for the highest-grossing movies as well.  Since this year's Academy Awards had a Best Visual Effects shoo-in (Gravity) which was also a strong contender for Best Picture, I thought I would replace my email reply with a blog post that took a closer looked at these films.

Before I continue, however, ask yourself this movie trivia question: "What films have won the Academy Award for both Best Picture and Best Special/Visual Effects?" I discovered the answer while creating my list.

Awards

To start making my list, I wanted to start by looking at "hard" data, so I looked up the past winners of the Academy Award for Visual Effects. It is worth noting that the category underwent an evolution over the years: its name changed to reflect the gradual eclipse of visual effects over special effects, starting as "Best Special Effects" in 1939 but becoming "Best Visual Effects" in 1978. In some years the award wasn't given out at all. After I reviewed the list of 74 winners, I cross-checked them with the Best Picture winners and nominees from the same years, of which there were 22. Finally, when typing up the list, I added notes for movies that especially relied on a fully-digital or practical principal character, to show how common that complicated effect has become. These last two notes were only made offhand, and are not 100% complete.

Best Visual Effects (or equivalent) and Best Picture Oscar Winners and Nominees:

pink = Best Picture nominee
red = Best Picture winner
d = principal digital character
p = principal practical character

2013: Gravity d
2012: Life of Pi d
2011: Hugo
2010: Inception
2009: Avatar d
2008: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button d
2007: The Golden Compass
2006: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest d
2005: King Kong d
2004: Spider-Man 2
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King d
2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers d
2001: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2000: Gladiator
1999: The Matrix
1998: What Dreams May Come
1997: Titanic
1996: Independence Day
1995: Babe
1994: Forrest Gump
1993: Jurassic Park
1992: Death Becomes Her
1991: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1990: Total Recall
1989: The Abyss
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1987: Innerspace
1986: Aliens
1985: Cocoon
1984: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
1983: Return of the Jedi p
1982: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1980: The Empire Strikes Back p
1979: Alien
1978: Superman
1977 ("Best Visual Effects" from this year onward): Star Wars
1976 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): King Kong
1975 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): The Hindenburg
1974 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): Earthquake
1973 NO AWARD GIVEN (More on that here)
1972 ("Special Achievement in Visual Effects"): The Poseidon Adventure
1971 ("Best Visual Effects"): Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1970 ("Best Visual Effects"): Tora! Tora! Tora!
1969 ("Best Visual Effects"): Marooned
1968 ("Best Visual Effects"): 2001: A Space Odyssey
1967 ("Best Visual Effects"): Doctor Dolittle
1966 ("Best Visual Effects"): Fantastic Voyage
1965 ("Best Visual Effects"): Thunderball
1964 ("Best Special Effects"): Mary Poppins
1963 ("Best Special Effects"): Cleopatra
1962 ("Best Special Effects"): The Longest Day
1961 ("Best Special Effects"): The Guns of Navarone
1960 ("Best Special Effects"): The Time Machine
1959 ("Best Special Effects"): Ben-Hur
1958 ("Best Special Effects"): Tom Thumb
1957 ("Best Special Effects"): The Enemy Below
1956 ("Best Special Effects"): The Ten Commandments
1955 ("Best Special Effects"): The Bridges at Tokyo-Ri
1954 ("Best Special Effects"): 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1953 ("Best Special Effects"): The War of the Worlds
1952 ("Best Special Effects"): Plymouth Adventure
1951 ("Best Special Effects"): When Worlds Collide
1950 ("Best Special Effects"): Destination Moon
1949 ("Best Special Effects"): Mighty Joe Young
1948 ("Best Special Effects"): Portrait of Jennie
1947 ("Best Special Effects"): Green Dolphin Street
1946 ("Best Special Effects"): Blithe Spirit
1945 ("Best Special Effects"): Wonder Man
1944 ("Best Special Effects"): Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
1943 ("Best Special Effects"): Crash Dive
1942 ("Best Special Effects"): Reap the Wild Wind
1941 ("Best Special Effects"): I Wanted Wings
1940 ("Best Special Effects"): The Thief of Baghdad
1939 ("Best Special Effects"): The Rains Came

While it has lately looked like films with great visual effects go hand in hand with Best Picture nominations, there were three 10+ year droughts in Oscar history where no film was nominated for both awards. Moreover, only five times in 74 years did the same film win both awards, and four have been in the last 20 years. To put that into perspective, Walt Disney won four Academy Awards in one night.

So once again, the list of the "VFX Oscar Elite," containing the epic powerhouses that managed to buck the odds to win for Best Picture and Best Visual Effects is as follows:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Gladiator
Titanic
Forrest Gump
Ben-Hur

One fantasy film and four historical films, with two set in ancient Rome.  Three share the all-time record for most wins by a film. None of the them share any directors, producers, or actors (as far as I could tell upon first glance). It is an interesting group of five films that, prior to doing this research, I did not know had this fact in common. After searching the Internet for a bit, no other website seemed to mention this specific list either, so I assume this is not a well-known or commonly-discussed piece of trivia. What's more, now that the last six years of the Academy Awards have all contained a film that shared nominations for Best Picture and Best Visual Effects, we might be due for another film to join the ranks of this VFX Oscar Elite very soon (keep this in mind when making your Oscar picks next year!).

Other observations:

• By cementing the category's modern name, Star Wars literally changed the category of "Best Visual Effects."
• It does not seem to be as easy for Peter Jackson's fantasy movies to win Best VFX any more. Despite the Lord of the Rings movies winning Best VFX Oscars every time they were nominated, Peter Jackson's movies have not won the award since Return of the King collected both the Best Visual Effects and Best Picture awards in 2003. 
• By and large, The Academy has not seemed to "snub" any great visual effects movies for its nominations. The field seems to be more of a meritocracy than others. Although, The Dark Knight Rises recently missed nomination in 2013.
• Speaking of 2013, Life of Pi won in perhaps the Academy's most competitive year, beating out The Avengers, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Prometheus, and Snow White and the Huntsman. 1999 was also a year with a big rivalry between The Matrix and Star Wars: Episode One (no Star Wars prequel ever went on to win the award).

But enough about arbitrary and subjective things like artistic awards. Let's move on to something concrete:

Box Office Performance

Skipping any that were fully-animated, I took a look at the top ten highest-grossing films of all time (domestic, then worldwide) and saw how they lined up with the above Oscar-winners:

light blue = Best VFX nominee
blue = Best VFX winner
red = Best Picture nominee
pink = Best Picture nominee/Best VFX winner
purple = Best Picture winner/Best VFX winner

Top Ten Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time - United States

1. Avatar
2. Titanic
3. Marvel's The Avengers
4. The Dark Knight
5. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
6. Star Wars
7. The Dark Knight Rises
9. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (awards status currently unknown)
11. Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest

Top Ten Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time - Worldwide

1. Avatar
2. Titanic
3. Marvel's The Avengers
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
5. Iron Man 3
6. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8. Skyfall
9. The Dark Knight Rises
10. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Observations:

• None of the top ten highest-grossing films have been both nominated for and lost the Best Picture and Best Visual Effects categories.
• Directors who have remained consistent standouts over the years include: Michael Bay, James Cameron, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Gore Verbinski, and Robert Zemeckis.
• We love ourselves some aliens and comic book heroes, don't we? No wonder those movies keep getting made.

Making My Final List

After discovering those five movies that won Oscars for Best Visual Effects and Best Picture, I knew I had to give special consideration to them, and they required a good reason if they were not to be included. In the end, however, I decided to drop Forrest Gump, because its effects, while undoubtedly clever and well-executed, were not enough of a spectacle in the movie to make a "best Visual Effects movie" list, with all that has been released since 1994. Gladiator was removed because its effects also weren't quite as impressive compared to other top VFX films. As a side note however, what is uniquely great about movies like Forrest Gump and Gladiator are their timeless visual effects that pushed the limits of the available technology, without being so overly ambitious that their quality and believability suffered. Ben-Hur I omitted because it was released back in the special effects era, and its visuals are what a game developer might politely call "last generation." Titanic is a classic movie with great effects, but for diversity's sake, I only included one James Cameron movie.

For the replacements, I weighed factors like accolades, spectacle/believability, timelessness, historical significance to the VFX medium, and memorability/entertainment level. Three over-the-top juggernauts seemed like appropriate choices to showcase what the limits of current technology can do. Although it wasn't in the league in terms of box office, Life of Pi was chosen for its similarly ambitious and beautiful effects. A Christopher Nolan movie needed including as well, even though he commonly relies on practical technology for shots that seem like they would be digital (the rotating hallway set in Inception is a great example of this). David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button also achieved a powerfully touching performance by a digital character, winning his visual effects team an Oscar, along with a whopping thirteen Oscar nominations (including Best Picture). The Matrix and Empire Strikes Back are both entertaining classics with watershed effects that have aged very well over time.

So after weighing all those factors, I came to my final list (in order of release date):

• Life of Pi
• The Avengers
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Inception
• Avatar
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Matrix
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

A pretty safe list, and of course, he's already seen them all (d'oh!). Expecting that though, I made a couple of back-up lists. Other than the Academy Award winners and the tip-top box office grossers, here is a select a list of "Best Visual Effects" also-rans whose visual effects have stood the test of time:

Apollo 13, Blade Runner, District 9, Harry Potter films, Iron Man 1 and 2, Jurassic Park 2 and 3, The Matrix 2 and 3, Minority Report, Pearl Harbor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the Star Wars prequels, Transformers 1 & 2, War of the Worlds

And here's list of fun ones, although some effects might not have held up as well over time:

Back to the Future 1 and 2, Ghostbusters, The Fifth Element, Jason and the Argonauts, Jaws, Planet of the Apes, Skyfall, Starship Troopers, and on and on...

So that's it. I hope all this helped put these movies in a new light. What makes up your top ten list of visual effects movies?


_____
Hat tip to these online articles, which helped prevent films from slipping through the cracks of my memory: Den of Geek's Top 50 Movie Special Effects, Erin Whitney's 13 Jaw-Dropping Visual Effects in Movies, and Chris Agar's 8 Movies That Revolutionized Hollywood's Visual Effects

Colin Stokes: The Hidden Morals of Movies or How Movies Teach Manhood

Today I watched a TED talk by an unassuming dad named Colin Stokes. Using a dry sense of humor, he compared the two favorite movies of his daughter and son: The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars (respectively) and how they have influenced them both. As a new dad who got hooked on Star Wars early, and enjoyed (but never dwell on) the Wizard of Oz, the subject matter was up my alley.



There were many memorable lines, from the then-prescient:

"I think if the Wizard of Oz were made today, the wizard would say 'Dorothy you are the savior of Oz that the prophecy foretold. Use your magic slippers to defeat the computer-generated armies of the Wicked Witch.'"

To the topics of how the heroes in each movie succeed:

"I wonder what my son is soaking up, and I wonder what he is soaking in: is he picking up the themes of courage and perseverance and loyalty? Is he picking up on the fact that Luke joins an army to overthrow the government? Is he picking up on the fact that there are only boys in the universe, other than Aunt Beru, and of course this princess who's really cool, but who kinda waits around through most of the movie so that she can give the hero a medal and a wink and thank him for saving the universe by using the magic that he was born with?

"Compare this to 1939 and the Wizard of Oz. How does Dorothy win her movie? By making friends with everybody and being a leader. That's kind of the world I'd rather raise my kids in. Oz. And not the world of dudes fighting, which is where we kind of have to be. Why is there so much Force--capital F force--in the movies we watch with our kids and so little in the yellow-brick road?"

The conversation goes on from there to address the evolution of the Disney princess yet how male characters have stagnated. Additionally, he cites his informal study of top Hollywood movies rate against the famous Bechdel Test, which powerfully shows how far the movie industry has yet to go to flesh out the character makeup of their stories. From there he extrapolates how an improvement in this area could help to reduce sexual assault.

It was an effective speech at getting me to see these films from a new angle, and I will keep its notions in mind with each children's movie release.

Richard Williams - This Amazing Medium

The Richard Williams "This Amazing Medium" presentation was already underway by the time I arrived at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Despite the two complimentary lots dedicated to Academy events, parking there is always a bear (and who are all these animators who leave work before 7PM, anyway?). As I slid into my seat in the back of the dark theater, a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves finished playing on the screen. As the clip finished, the lights went up and the master animator took the stage to tell of the films that inspired him when he was a young animator.



This Fantasia clip followed:


Williams then talked a bit about the projects he worked on as a young animator in England. When tasked to create some complicated water effects, he referenced the groundbreaking animated water effects in Pinocchio, and played this clip:



At this point I was fully settled in to the presentation. Pinocchio was the first animated film with which I was completely fascinated, and one of the drawings from childhood I still have is a tracing of the Pinocchio puppet off of a book I had back then. Williams then spoke about working on an intro sequence on the Sidney Lumet picture Prince of the City, and having a conversation with Lumet about the movie Dumbo. "It's the perfect film," Williams recalled Lumet saying, "each sequence is completely self-contained, but each moves the story forward." Then came the Dumbo "Pink Elephants" clip. Williams recalled a quick story about one of the Disney animators encountering a dumbfounded filmmaker who asked the animator: "What were you guys on when you were making that sequence?" The animator's answer: "Pepto Bismol and Aspirin."

Another inspiring animator to Williams was the legendary Tex Avery. Avery, while working at Disney, quickly realized he wasn't talented enough to draw like the animators at the studio, so he decided to go as far as he could in the opposite direction of Disney--toward the manic and hilarious. Avery went on to direct and write over 100 cartoons during the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Williams told a story about an elderly Avery coming on stage at a cartoon film festival just after a solid hour of his cartoons were played consecutively. Rubbing his face in shock, Williams imitated Avery's reaction: "This...this just isn't right! You're not supposed to play this many of them at once! They're crazy enough in just 60 seconds!"

Avery would be shocked at what the Internet has brought us. Forget film festivals, today an animation fan doesn't have to leave home to watch weeks worth of the wildest shorts created in the last fifty years. Next, a clip was played of Avery's "King-Size Canary" (1947), which showed the greedy exploits of a starving and short-sighted house cat:

Next came Richard Williams retelling of his experience with Ken Harris, the Warner Bros. animator who later worked with Williams at his commercial studio in England. He portrayed Harris as extremely talented, but a complainer, since he was the lead animator who always had to train the hired animators to emulate William's complicated hatched animations the studio would become known for.

The animator who made the biggest impression on Richard Williams throughout his career was the legendary Milt Kahl, a member of Disney's Nine Old Men. Williams recounted seeing The Jungle Book for the first time in theaters, and not being particularly impressed with the animation at the beginning of the picture. A bit further into the picture, however, and Williams saw something that completely floored him: the performance of Shere Khan, as animated by Kahl:




In 1968, Richard Williams's studio was hired to create a series of animated sequences for the British war film Charge of the Light Brigade. They were done in the style of 1850s wood engravings. Williams called it "the best job we ever got":



After the release of Charge of the Light Brigade, Williams received a call from Chuck Jones at Warner Bros., who asked if he was interested to make an animated special of "A Christmas Carol:"


(Right after this clip, Williams mentioned that he asked Kahl if he would come work for him in England, but Kahl declined. "If I wanted to work on shit, I'd stay here," was the ornery animator retorted.)

Next up was the fun intro credits sequence his studio animated for the comedy hit The Return of the Pink Panther (1975):

And after that, he arrived at the point in his career for "The Rabbit Job:"

The sequences his studio created for the film were unforgettable:


Williams then briefly mentioned his animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler, which was never released in theaters. The studio worried about its similarity to Aladdin, which would show in theaters around the same projected release date, and it was shelved until it became a straight-to-DVD release.. It was clearly a painful experience for Williams, who showed only the trailer before moving on in the presentation.


After seeing his dream film fall short of its ultimate goal, Williams picked himself up and moved on to continue mastering the craft of animation. While he worked, he would often visit the nearby house of Ken Harris to seek the advice of his longtime friend. Harris was much older and tired at the time, and would go in for naps at midday during their sessions, while Richard continued working in the living room. Harris would often say that he was just too old to help with animation any more, but Williams said with a smile that Harris would come out after his nap, look over the drawings spread out on the floor, stop to fixate on a drawing, then point and quickly proclaim "that's WRONG!"

One day, after finally finishing a particularly difficult sequence, he called up Ken Harris on the phone and proclaimed: "I did it! I can finally animate anything I can think of!" Williams yelled with his fists raised high above his head, smiling like a boy pedaling on a new bike for the first time.  He then lowered his hands, took a breath and imitated Ken's classic response: "Well...as long as you think that." The audience howled.

As the presentation started winding down, Williams reflected on when he was a young artist traveling in Europe one year. He had sold a portrait and was living off the money, and would spend his days sketching a troupe of acrobats who were performing in a small town in Spain. He had saved the drawings for decades, and planned on animating them at some point. Over the last couple years he had revisited them, and what followed in the theater was a short film that was part slideshow, part animation. The music was composed by a friend of his years ago, and the blending of it all was very quietly moving and impressive. The crowd heaped its praise as Williams took the stage to present his final piece.

The lights dimmed for a final time, and the screen flashed white. Illustrated in Williams's now-signature style of hundreds of painstakingly drawn hatchmarks, was a soldier on an ancient boat. The camera spun to show the ocean the boat was cutting through, as waves broke in front of the boat. Next, the camera flew off the boat and the wind lifted it toward land. A beach appeared and quickly filled the screen, followed by a field with daffodils, enlarging as the camera settled to inspect them. A rush of wind back from the naval soldier's boat stretched the daffodil apart, spraying the seeds across the screen. A large eye then shot open, and looked squarely into the camera. The second eye moved in from off screen as another man's face appeared. Alerted, he backed away from the daffodils and stood up. Sensing danger from across the ocean, he looked to his left and turned, but before we could see what he was looking at, the film cut out. After the lights went up and the audience finished applauding, Williams explained that it was the first two "chapters" of a 25 part story. I sincerely hope he completes the film, because I was blown away by what I saw.

It was truly special to have witnessed a night celebrating such a storied career. Having never met any of the nine old men, I felt it was as if their knowledge and spirit had returned before us all in the vitality and kindness of a master animator who had learned from them all and who had become another one of the treasured few in history to reach the top of the pyramid of creative self-actualization. At last he had the ability (and the confidence that comes with it) to animate something exactly as he imagined it. It took him a lifetime of drawing, traveling, observing, countless pieces of paper crumpled up in frustration, awards and honors, speeches, late nights and sore wrists, but he had pulled it off and lived to tell the tale. Williams then wrapped things up by reading a prepared statement thanking the people in his life. At the end of the list was his wife and producer Imogen Sutton, whom the crowd applauded. Richard then looked toward us all, cupped his hands to his mouth, and said with a kind smile a note of support for all of the animators who had packed the house, and were already beginning the standing ovation: "Good luck!"

Inside the Academy lobby with a Roger Rabbit painting made by Williams.