Two Towers Wins 8 Awards at Visual Effects Society Awards (1 Viewer)

[Steve Christou]

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" towered over the competition Wednesday night to win eight of the nine Visual Effects Society awards for which the movie was nominated.

Among television entries, ABC's "Dinotopia" picked up four awards, the only other multiple winner.

The award program was the first for the 6-year-old organization, which comprises about 800 f/x specialists worldwide. Four panels of VES members slogged through dozens of entries in movies, TV, music videos and commercials in January to pick nominees in 20 categories. Then, roughly 100 members spent the first weekend in February watching demo reels from 56 nominees across all the categories.

The resulting selections were an overwhelming endorsement of the work by New Zealand-based house Weta on "The Two Towers." Its only loss in nine categories was matte painting in a motion picture, nabbed by Industrial Light & Magic for "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones."

For the rest of the story heres the link....

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ilm_effects_dc

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Kudos to WETA - acknowledgement from their peers must be most gratifying.

Congrats to the other winners as well.

 

[Evan Case]

Is there a site for a more thorough explanation of what some of these categories entail? For instance, what's the difference between special effects and visual effects in an effects-driven motion picture?

TTT is a worthy winner, though eight out of nine may be a little high. And unless I'm mistaken, doesn't compositing include stuff like blue screen work? The bluescreen Ent and Warg stuff was among the FX work's only weak points (along with Gollum's feet in long shots, and one of the intial Helm's Deep daytime flyover shots--really poor CGI refugees), so I'm surprised it still won.

Evan

 

[Joshua_Y]

I disagree with this. AOTC should have won more awards. AOTC was far more ambitious a project and larger and the FX flat out looked better. TTT still has some great FX, but nothing to write home about. I mean, the thing that everybody finds amazing is the big mass of army and thats just one little program, theres no animation involved.

 

[David Forbes]

I mean, the thing that everybody finds amazing is the big mass of army and thats just one little program, theres no animation involved.

Gee, what a surprise...

Um, how about GOLLUM for animation?

There was nothing in AOTC that we haven't seen before. Sure there was a lot of it, and most of it was very good, but that doesn't make up for originality.

Since this was awarded by those in the FX business I don't see where you're disagreeing with it has any merit whatsoever.

 

[Joshua_Y]

I can disagree with them if I wish and I do.

There was nothing in AOTC that we haven't seen before. Sure there was a lot of it, and most of it was very good, but that doesn't make up for originality

Really? I've never seen a planet made completely of towers, I've never seen a planet completely covered in water, I've never seen a war between 15,000 droids and 15,000 CloneTroopers, I've never see Yoda fight. AOTC was a harder show to do and it looked better.

Now, Gollum looked good and all, but in some shots he looked horribly out of place and very CG. The character brings Gollum to life, not the animation.

 

[Adam Horak]

Oh God, here we go again. Yet another thread hijacked into a Star Wars vs. LOTR debate.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Joshua,
Then you join the hundreds of Star Wars fans who decry the awards given out BY THE VISUAL EFFECTS INDUSTRY ITSELF. The voters were the people who develop and use these technologies. Disagree all you want, it pretty much says to me the BIZ is convinced of which film they found more groundbreaking and well-done.

You may disagree at your leisure. But don't act like the voters weren't completely aware of the films, their layouts, their effects needs, and the challenges presented by each. Like me, you are an uneducated consumer. They ARE the business.

Congrats to all winners!

Take care,
Chuck

 

[David Forbes]

I saw Coruscant 20 years ago in Blade Runner and more recently in The Fifth Element. Saw the flying cars in The Fifth Element too. Hardly original.

The water elements for Kamino were recycled from A Perfect Storm. Lucas has said so himself. It's a lot of water. Whoopee. You didn't see a planet completely covered in water anway, you just saw a section, which looked just like a stormy sea.

Wow, lots of droids and lots of troopers, all of which look identical because they're either metal or wearing armor, which makes them pretty easy to duplicate. At least the 10,000-strong Uruk-Hai army was made of organic creatures that looked different from one another. Plus there were horses and men. Not to mention that the choreography of the battle itself kicked the crap out of the one in AOTC.

If you think MASSIVE is just "one little program" you obviously have no concept of CGI and what it takes to pull something like that off so well.

Yoda fighting didn't look good at all. It was totally unbelievable for the character. It was a joke, and I can't believe how people get a hard-on for it. It was more fanboy appeasement crap from Lucas. Even without considering how stupid it was for Yoda, who has trouble walking, for God's sake, to be bouncing around like he had Flubber on his feet, it didn't look especially realistic. And it was almost too dark to see.

I disagree completely that AOTC was a harder show to do. There was nothing new in it, only more of things we've already seen.

 

[David Forbes]

Yeah, Adam, and look who did the hijacking.

 

[Eric_E]

AOTC was far more ambitious a project and larger

There's just no changing some people's minds - but to say TTT wasn't as big or ambitious as AotC is utterly laughable to me.

 

[John^Lal]

Lord of the Rings is more ambitious a project as any other before it. $300 million invested into 3 movies...if the first tanked, pbs would have had another mini series to show and New Line would be begging for a life saver. The same couldn't be said about Lucasfilm or 20th Century

 

[Sean Bryan]

Congratulations to WETA and TTT!

Nicely done and well deserved!

 

[RobertR]

Congratulations to the makers of LOTR for being recognized for their superor technical work.

 

[RobertR]

utterly laughable

An appropriate phrase

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

WETA did groundbreaking work in TTT, considering the amount of time & a lower budget; the awards are well deserved for such a new effects house tackling such a huge project. To take anything away from AOTC, however, as some posters have done in their responses, is just as bad as the annoying "thread hijacking" in the first place. Nothing about AOTC is "old hat"; the envelope was pushed in every respect, and in practically every shot. Bashing one movie doesn't make the other one better; they're both great work, and IMO either film could have won all those awards and deserved them. WETA is a relatively new studio, and I'm glad to see them get recognition, but don't defend them by inserting yet more uninformed opinions about how clearly superior to ILM you perceive them to be...(though it is understandably tempting given the circumstances in this thread so far...)

-Dennis

 

[Steve Christou]

Here's the Visual Effects Society Home Page...

http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/

And heres the link for other winners including Best Supporting Visual Effects!

http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/winners2.html

 

[Joshua_Y]

WETA did groundbreaking work in TTT, considering the amount of time & a lower budget; the awards are well deserved for such a new effects house tackling such a huge project. To take anything away from AOTC, however, as some posters have done in their responses, is just as bad as the annoying "thread hijacking" in the first place. Nothing about AOTC is "old hat"; the envelope was pushed in every respect, and in practically every shot. Bashing one movie doesn't make the other one better; they're both great work, and IMO either film could have won all those awards and deserved them. WETA is a relatively new studio, and I'm glad to see them get recognition, but don't defend them by inserting yet more uninformed opinions about how clearly superior to ILM you perceive them to be.

I completely agree. Both films pushed the envelope in terms of FX, but to give all of the awards but one to one film and not the other is a little ridiculous. AOTC deserved more praise than it got.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

I think it deserved more praise than it got as well...but everyone can't agree all the time...

Now if I were to be nitpicky:

Best Compositing to WETA over ILM is laughable. The Digital Compositing done for AOTC was far more complex (and convincing) than the shoddy compositing in TTT (this was not WETA's strength, even in FOTR)

The rest of the awards categories are completely subjective; kudos to WETA! (I don't know what the difference between "special effects" and "visual effects" is...nor do I care too...)

-Dennis

 

[Lou Sytsma]

As Chuck said - the award was given by peers.


If anyone is strongly disagrees about this, compose a polite, well thought out email and send it to the committee explaining why you disagree with their choice of winners.

There's nothing to be gained here by bashing the awards in this thread.