NOMINEES
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson
- Hugo – Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, and Alex Henning
- Real Steel – Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor, and Swen Gillberg
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew E. Butler, and John Frazier
Although one might think that this is a relatively new category, it actually dates back to the very first Oscar ceremony when the Academy gave an award for ‘Best Engineering Effects’ to the World War I flying drama Wings (1927).
Willis O’Brien‘s animation work in King Kong (1933) raised the profile of visual effects but it wasn’t until 1938 that Spawn of the North was awarded a special achievement award.
From 1938 onwards Special Effects became a category, but until 1962 visual effects were shared with sound effects nominations in a combined category.
From 1964 until 1971, the name of the category was Best Special Visual Effects, but after 1977 was changed to Best Visual Effects.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2
- BAFTA interview with Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson
- Double Negative on Facebook
HUGO
- Wired article on the processing power needed for the VFX in Hugo
- Post Magazine interview with VFX supervisor Rob Legato [53 mins]
- Video interview with Rob Legato at the VES awards
REAL STEEL
- FX Guide on how Digital Domain integrated live action with CGI
- VFX supervisor Erik Nash talks about the robot boxing
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
- WETA live event on the VFX [26 mins]
- FX Guide podcast interview with Dan Lemmon on WETA’swork [40 mins]
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
- The Hollywood Reporter with 5 facts about ILM’s visual effects
- FX Guide interview with Scott Farrar of ILM
> Official Oscar site
> Explore previous winners of Best Visual Effects at Wikipedia