A century in five minutes!
No big surprises in Oscar noms
Per usual, not too much for genre fans to get excited about. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I suppose could classify as fantasy, sort of, had the most nods this year, including Best Picture and Actor. Heath Ledger is up for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, but the movie failed to get any other major nominations. It is up for the usual throw-them-a-bone categories of Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.
Wall-E did pretty good – it failed to get a Best Picture nod as many were hoping for, but it is up for Animated Film (duh,) Original Screenplay, Original Song, and several technical awards.
The Visual Effects category puts Benjamin Button up against The Dark Knight and ILM’s Iron Man.
UPDATE: StarWars.com has a full listing of all ILM and Skywalker Sound Oscar nominations, as well as BAFTA and VES nods.
Shock and Awe: The 50 best special effects
Den of Geek’s top fifty movie special effects shots is a hell of a list. It willingly embraces all eras, movies that you might not expect (Hitchcock?!?) and hell, I think I learned a thing or two. (And all the scenes have a video. That’s some serious dedication.) It probably goes without saying that A New Hope and Return of the Jedi get entries.
Plus I’ll take any excuse to lead off with Harryhausen.
They also have a list of the 24 worst special effects of all time, which includes that horrible Special Edition Jabba scene. (Which I still hold is worse than Han shooting first.)
RIP: Effects master Stan Winston
Numerous media outlets today reported the death of Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special effects master whose work included Terminator, Jurassic Park, and Aliens. He was 62.
ILM’s Dennis Muren, who supervised Jurassic Park’s digital effects, told Variety:
“When you put (Winston’s creatures and digital effects) together, the audience was confused, and sometimes we were, too, about who had done what.
“But Stan had always said, ‘It shouldn’t be all one or all the other; it should be a combination of the two.'”
Michael Heilemann over at Binary Bonsai has a brief tribute – and a book recommendation.
Interviews: Lorne Peterson, Greg Keyes, Bob Bergen
- Lightsabre has part three of their talk with Lorne Peterson.
- The Fantasy Book Critic interviews Gregory Keyes, touching briefly on his Star Wars work.
- Toon Zone picks the brain of voice actor Bob Bergen, who’s talked Luke Skywalker for video games and the occasional Robot Chicken.
Video: Making of ANH’s Computer Graphics
Maybe not the most exciting video in the world, but an intriguing look into an aspect of the movie that is often neglected. (via)
In the news: Thursday morning reading list
- Rejected Star Wars merchandise still making the rounds, now on NPR.
- Comic Book Resources tours Star Wars artist Tommy Lee Edward’s home and studio.
- Popular Mechanics gets a few tips from on modelmaking from Grant McCune, who worked on A New Hope. (via)
- Lucas foundation honors former teacher.
ILM makes VFX semi-finals
No surprise here: Five ILM films are on the preliminary list for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. The list of 15 will be narrowed down to 8 finalists, and from there to the 3 Oscar nominees.
Pixels, CGI, not this crude matter
Yoda is #5 on Entertainment Weekly’s ten favorite CG characters. Aside from the fact that most of us first fell for Yoda in puppet form, I have a hard time taking seriously any list that includes Casper the Friendly Ghost. Fun fact: ILM is responsible for 60% of the list. (Including Casper. Sorry dudes.)
No time for CG, Dr. Jones
It looks like no Computer Graphics for Indiana Jones IV.
Producer Frank Marshall explained this approach to the New Haven Register: “Steven is very aware of the process and we’re not cheating with CG (computer graphics) at all. It keeps the B movie feel.”
Also, principal shooting in New Haven has wrapped, and the crew is off to Hawaii for more filming.