The Academy Award for Visual Effects (VFX) is awarded to the movie
and crew the Academy feels have done the best job that year of creating environments
and creatures through computer animation (visual effects) and practical effects
like puppets and sculptures (special effects).
I enjoy this category because it honors one of the unsung jobs on a film
that can have incredible impact on the overall finished product. These are the folks working behind the scenes
to make sure the final movie feels seamless. This year, there are five
nominees.
Love and
Monsters (Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt, Brian Cox)
This is the simple story of a young man in a
post-apocalyptic world making his way from one compound to another to join his
high school girlfriend through fields of monsters. The impressive effects in
this movie include creating an apocalypse, world-building, a robot, and lots of
monsters.
In a movie with ‘monsters’ in the title, of course the monsters
have to be impressive. The movie feels
inspired by classic Harryhausen effects with giant bugs and creepy
crawlers. The combination of computer
and practical effects make the finished product visually stunning. Currently, you can rent Love and Monsters on
Amazon Prime for $4.99.
The Midnight
Sky (Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon, David Watkins)
The Midnight Sky is another post-apocalyptic movie that follows
Augustine, a scientist, as he tries to stop a group of astronauts from
returning to earth. Augustine is dying
of terminal cancer and he sets out to reach a weather station to communicate
with the crew of the Aether to warn them that Earth is not habitable.
The effects here are used to
create the landscape of a new world that the Aether discovers, the look and
feel of the Aether as it travels through space, and various space-travel and
decimated earth radioactive-ice storm scenes. The team created computer facial replacements
for scenes of astronauts in space.
Industrial Light & Magic helped by using a smaller version of the
“Volume” used for The Mandalorian for Clooney’s Artic observatory and ice
storms. You can currently stream The Midnight Sky on Netflix.
Mulan
(Sean Fade, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury, Steven Ingram)
Disney was nominated in this category for the Lion King remake last year
and this year the Mulan live-action version got a nomination. The team at Weta Digital helped to create the
Imperial City based on actual historical maps and architecture. Filling in crowd scenes with computer
generated people helped add scale to the feature.
The movie looks amazing, the
battle sequences are astounding and the city expansive. Finding a smooth way to integrate computer
enhancements into battle sequences without them looking cartoony is
tricky. Digital extras are one of the
best advancements of CGI technology and can really provide scope without hiring
hundreds of extras. Weta refined their digital extras for this movie, creating
more realistic looking crowds. You can stream Mulan on Disney+.
The
One and Only Ivan (Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones, Santiago Colomo Martinez)
The One and Only Ivan brings to life a popular children’s book. It tells
the story of a silverback gorilla in captivity who promises to do what he can
to help free a baby elephant. Each of the animals in the movie is created with
computer effects. Ivan is done through performance capture.
Photorealistic animals are always
impressive, and difficult. They need to look realistic but still be able to
convey emotion so that the audience connects with them. The crew from MPC Film
was able to create a digital gorilla that can still give an emotional
performance to bring the audience with him on his quest for freedom. You can stream this movie on Disney+.
Tenet
(Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley, Scott Fisher)
Tenet tells the story of a ‘protagonist’ as he joins a group of
international agents who are working to stop an impending global war by
inverting time. Yes, inverting time –
not time traveling, as they explain in the movie. But that’s about all the
explanation you get. You really do have to turn off your brain and just enjoy
the crazy effects.
Director Christopher Nolan used few
computer effects, instead shooting most of the effects in reverse and combining
the forward and backward action together to create the dizzying action
sequences. While the story may be confusing, the fights are fantastic, and the
movie almost requires multiple viewings to truly appreciate the high level of
artistic crazy at work. The team at DNEG had to invent some new techniques to
pull of the execution of the inverted sequences. Also, incredible stunt work
across the board. You can currently rent Tenet on Amazon Prime for $5.99.
Who
Should Win:
Admittedly, I have not seen many of
the nominees this year. This is strange as typically this is the category that
features movies I have seen willingly, but last year was strange all around. I
did manage to see Tenet in the theater and the effects are fantastic – mainly
because the majority are practical and layered together beautifully and the
stunt work is absolutely incredible. That is the movie that gets my vote. JDW balancing that espresso cup with one hand
is not an effect, he managed that skill on his own.
Who Will Win:
There does not seem to be a front
runner this year and the internet seems to think that The Midnight Sky and
Tenet are neck and neck. The Academy
does tend to favor the effects that are the least showy – those that recreate
historical locations and events rather than creating new and fantastical
situations. None of the movies this year are historical dramas, but Mulan is
the closest in that area. But even with the historical touches, I do not think that will win, I think that
Tenet will pull it out this year.
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