VES Voting & XLII
Over the weekend here, otherwise known as the Superbowl weekend, I finished up viewing and voting for the top choices for the VES Awards. It took almost five hours, but I watched everything. It's such a shame that there was so much great work, that it was tough to narrow down one winner! The voting closes tomorrow, just as the real voting begins.
Tippett Studio released news about their work on Cloverfield on Digital Content Producer. Check it out, and read more about their work over on Meyemind. Spoiler, he's got the monster on the front page in a thumbnail, so don't hit that link unless you want to see the monster.
Phil Tippett, visual effects pioneer and founder of Tippett Studio states “It’s about time. The planet earth can always use a good monster.”
There were a couple good commercials during Superbowl 42 yesterday, and some nice trailers for movies coming out this summer! Ironman looks amazing. There was also a Ford commercial where they spun a pickup truck. At first a bunch of us thought, wow, well, that's some visual effect. Then we went to the site. Turns out, they built the rig for real, and spun one of their F150s in a centrifuge. Shows you how much we know!
Back to the VES Voting... There was some amazing work, like I mentioned. All the submissions had breakdowns and voiceovers to show what work they did, and how they accomplished said work. Based on the verbal descriptions of the visual effects, and the layer breakdowns, from animatics to final shots, a voter would have everything they need to fill their ballot. Digital Domain had several entries into the categories, from Supporting Visual Effects to Best Compositing. Tippett Studio had an entry as well for Enchanted, and the work they did on that was amazing. It's always great to see what other companies are doing to push the envelop on effects. Often times we work on something for months on end, only for it to be seldom seen and sorely under-appreciated by the general public. It's times like these, viewing the entries and breakdowns, that I truly appreciate the work that goes into our art. Our industry, visual effects, is always one-upping each other, striving for the best. Internal competition between artists and houses seems to make the next big thing on the screen worth watching.
Every year, there's something for us to look forward to, to make us say wow. We often get jaded by our own work, staring at it for months on end, so we like to view what other people and studios and departments are doing. The escape to the movies does that. I can't wait for the blockbusters this summer!
hah! I could have sworn that F150 was CG... nice find Aruna, I also liked the huge pigeon spot, just because we did CG pigeons on Enchanted, and they didn't look nearly as good as those ones... :) Not sure if those were CG or not though. And yeah, don't click on that link unless you want to see an image of that Clover Monster. werd.
davids
February 4, 2008 11:08 AM
Ohh and I forgot to mention that yeah, some of those Iron Man shots looked sweet, as did some in the new Narnia, and Jumper and Wanted looked pretty cool as well.
davids
February 4, 2008 11:09 AM