Who will win Academy Award? - Oscars 2018 : Contenders for Best Visual Effects #Starwars #WOTPOTA #GOTG2

aksharsharma (39)in #starwars • 6 years ago (edited)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 10 films remain in the running in the Visual Effects category for the 90th Academy Awards. The list includes some expected heavy hitters, including “Dunkirk,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” “War for the Planet of the Apes,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” alongside some pleasant surprises, like “Okja” and “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.”

The Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee determined the shortlist. All members of the Visual Effects Branch will now be invited to view 10-minute excerpts from each of the shortlisted films, Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The above process is already over.

The Finalists are:-

1. Blade Runner 2049

Denis Villeneuve’s vision for the “Blade Runner” sequel 30 years on was a cold, freezing, brutalist environment for Southern California along with a red, post-apocalyptic Vegas. This was achieved under the overall supervision of John Nelson with stunning aerial plate photography and other augmentation, including the Seawall and Trash Mesa.

There was also the impressive character work of the holographic Joi (Ana de Armas), companion to Ryan Gosling’s K. This was brilliantly designed by Nelson as a back-face transparency and animated by Double Negative.

Watch it here

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

In James Gunn’s Marvel sequel, there are a few new wrinkles, not the least of which was animating Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), a reboot of the sprouting humanoid. Framestore took the lead this time: the bark couldn’t look too aged, the face had to be simpler, and he was only 10cm tall. But Gunn wanted him to look more alien, which meant more fluid arm movements.

However, making Baby Groot dance in the opening “Mr. Blue Sky” action sequence was the biggest challenge, since the camera was faster than his tiny steps. So they came up with a series of hops and cheats through camera tweaks, animation, lighting, and comic beats.

Watch it here

3. War for the Planet of Apes

Andy Serkis’ final, remarkable performance as Caesar should finally earn Weta Digital its much-deserved Oscar for the franchise. They transformed him into a sentient chimpanzee with great nuance and emotional complexity through performance-captured animation. In the finale, he rises to Moses-like stature, grappling with his darkest demons before freeing himself and his tribe.

Weta also created the fast-talking, frenetic Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), which required special rigging to handle so much dialogue and an added function in the face puppet to reproduce the actor’s bug-eyed look of innocence and anxiety.

Watch it here

4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Aside from the cool space battles and an even greater reliance on practical effects, director Rian Johnson populated “The Last Jedi” with a slew of new and old friends and foes, including the adorable Porgs, the elegant Vulptices, the majestic Falthiers, the sinister Snoke, and the return of Master Yoda. Neal Scanlan, the creature & droid FX supervisor, collaborated closely with Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco and London.

The crystal foxes, known as Vulptices, are exquisite inhabitants of the mineral-rich, planet of Crait. Scanlan made an animatronic version with individual crystal hairs. However, they wound up fully CG up the anatomy and performance. Johnson wanted the crystalline fur to look like a chandelier.

Watch it here

Update : New video added on 22 Feb 4:23 pm

Watch it here

5. Kong: Skull Island

ILM went back to the 1933 original “King Kong” in designing the 100-foot gorilla for Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ “Apocalypse Now” riff. Under the overall supervision of Jeff White, the studio first used motion-facial-capture video reference (actor Terry Notary for the body, and actor Toby Kebbell for the face). Then the animation was entirely keyframed using ILM’s facial-capture system, honored last year for the Academy’s Sci-Tech Award, advancing the eye work, in particular.

Kong required a dedicated two-person team for thicker and more-realistic grooming, which also demanded a battle-weary look. ILM worked with a 7-foot gorilla model and then scaled it up to 100 feet and filled in the surface area with 19 million hairs.