Paramount had a big night at the Visual Effects Society awards. We knew that Hugo was bound to do well given that the VES Statue is already Papa Georges friendly (pictured left). But they won in other categories too thanks to Rango and Transformers. Will all three of those movies take home prizes at the Oscars? Transformers has the biggest hurdle there in all three of its categories but especially in visual effects since its battling Rise of the Planet of the Apes. "Caesar" is probably too agile to fall prey to "The Driller"
Visual Effects Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Dan Lemmon, Joe Letteri, Cyndi Ochs, Kurt Williams
Supporting Visual Effects Hugo: Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning, Rob Legato, Karen Murphy
Visual Effects in an Animated Feature Rango: Tim Alexander, Hal Hickel, Jacqui Lopez, Katie Lynch
Animated Character in a Live Action Feature "Caesar" Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Daniel Barrett, Florian Fernandez, Matthew Muntean, Eric Reynolds
Animated Character in an Animated Feature "Rango" Rango: Frank Gravatt, Kevin Martel, Brian Paik, Steve Walton
Created Environment in Live Action "155 Wacker Drive" Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Giles Hancock, John Hanson, Tom Martinek, Scott Younkin
Created Environment in Animated "Main Street Dirt" Rango: John Bell, Polly Ing, Martin Murphy, Russell Paul
Quick recall: I'm sure you remember Main Street in Rango since virtually all the action unfolded there. But if you need a quick memory nudge "155 Wacker Drive" is the building that took such a brutal beating in Transformers, an action sequence that they used so heavily in commercials since they correctly guessed that "The Driller" was their biggest WOW. In fact that action sequence was so memorable that it appears that Battleship wanted nothing more than to remind you of exactly that in their 'Transformers Jr.' Superbowl commercial.
Rango in the Dirt Saloon
Virtual Cinematography in Live Action: Hugo: Martin Chamney, Rob Legato, Adam Watkins, Fabio Zangla
Virtual Cinematography in Animated "The Dirt Saloon" Rango: Colin Benoit, Philippe Rebours, Nelson Sepulveda, Nick Walker
Models "Driller" Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Tim Brakensiek, Kelvin Chu, David Fogler, Rene Garcia
Compositing "Skinny Steve" Captain America: The First Avenger: Casey Allen, Trent Claus, Brian Hajek, Cliff Welsh
The rest of the awards were for television and commercials. Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Terra Nova (is that cancelled or not? Confusion) took home most of the prizes. You can see a full list of winners at the VES Official Site. And just because we love it so much, and its such an actressexual fix, let us all gaze once more upon the great "Dior J'Adore" which won Visual Effects in a Live Action Commercial.
Remarkably Charlize Theron's beauty is not computer generated but an actual thing that exists in nature (Good job God!) but mixing in those famous immortals required computer assistance.