The short list of films for the Oscars “bake off” in January have been announced. Congrats to all the artists and supervisors who worked so hard on such a great set of films.
The ten films in this years bake off are (in no order):
- Gravity – fxguide story link
- Iron Man 3 – fxguide story link
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
- Pacific Rim – fxguide story link
- Elysium – fxguide story link
- The Lone Ranger – fxguide story link
- Star Trek Into Darkness – fxguide story link
- Oblivion – fxguide story link
- Thor: The Dark World – fxguide story link
- World War Z – fxguide story link.
Missing in action
Some films must by definition be excluded – not all films can be in the bake off, but it is worth noting some films that are excluded and one can only assume must have come close?
- Man of Steel
- Oz the Great and Powerful
- Wolverine
- The Great Gatsby
- Ender’s Game
- After Earth
- Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Perhaps this just goes to show what a great year VFX have had creatively. For all the industry problems, and there have been a lot, the depth of vfx films is incredible this year.
VFX houses
In terms of vfx houses: – by a quick count:
ILM leads with 4 films in the bake off – Trek, Pac Rim, Lone Ranger & WWZ (where they had a smaller vfx role).
Next is MPC, Method and Luma Pictures with 3 each, then Weta, DD and Pixomondo all with two and finally also represented is Framestore (and a clear favorite for the Oscar), DNeg, Image Engine, Scanline, and Cinesite.
By this quick straw poll, USA (California) 8 teams (with overlap outside the USA), London is 8 teams (but with overlap on their Canadian and other branches), Canada gets a special mention as it not only has offices of other companies but its own Image Engine waving the Canadian flag for their work on Elysium …and Pixomondo is perhaps the most international company of all, and at this point it is hard to say there was one primary office geographically.
Man of Steel should be in the finalists. I thought the FX were better than Iron Man, Oblivion and The Lone Ranger. In any case, impressive list.
Hello, Mike Seymour, This is not a good thing last time we miss The Dark Knight Rises and this time Man of Steel.:-( ,, salute Christopher Nolan
Thanks fxguide for this article.
World War Z?? Come on… The hordes of zombies were impressive but all in all they looked fake in many scenes and the film relied on cg-zoombies too much.. Should swop place with Man of steel.
Yes, you are right Man of Steel is stand for VFX nomination. Hey Mike Seymour what you think about that.
Agree with the comments about Man of Steel. It literally blew my mind, the things we were seeing on screen in the film. But then we get on to the topic about having to choose 10 films – the problem lies right there. The work in all the films is at such a high standard.
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