ILM Wins Big at VES Awards

Last week at the 10th Annual VES Awards hosted by the Visual Effects Society, my friends and colleagues from Industrial Light & Magic were honored with seven awards, including a clean sweep for our first animated feature, "Rango".

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" won two key awards: one for Outstanding Created Environment and one for Outstanding Models. Both of the awards centered heavily around the Chicago destruction sequence, where Driller, the giant snake-like Transformer circles an already damaged building, squeezing it to the point of spitting the edifice in half, with the top half crashing onto another skyscraper.  Taking home awards for that work was Tim Brakensiek, Kelvin Chu, David Fogler, Rene Garcia, Giles Hancock, John Hanson, Scott Younkin, and my very good friend Tom Martinek, who did an extraordinary job supervising the tilted building sequence.  I have been fortunate to work with Tom for many years now, and I'm glad he now has this tangible proof of his enormous talents.

I have been very lucky in 2011: the three films to which I contributed ("Rango", "Transformers 3" and "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol") have been showered with praise for their innovative visual effects work. I'm proud to have been a part of these magnificent productions.

Congratulations to all the winners that night, and thank you so much to the Visual Effects Society for sponsoring the event.

• Full list of nominees for the 10th Annual VES Awards
• Full list of winners for the 10th Annual VES Awards
• FXGuide TV's video coverage of the event

"Transformers 3"

Two very amazing things happened recently, related to the visual effects of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon".

For one, Deadline Hollywood reports that Michael Bay, Paramount and Dreamworks are buying television commercial ad time to help with the Oscar push for the latest "Transformers" film.  This is unprecedented and very much appreciated.  The commercial also touts the incredible sound work of the "Transformers" team.

Here's the commercial:




I contributed to shots throughout "Transformers 3", and was also compositing sequence supervisor on the tilted building sequence.

On behalf of all the artists at Industrial Light & Magic who worked on your film, I'd like to say, Thank You, Michael.  We appreciate your very public support of our work, and for calling us "The Best Visual Effects Team of the year".  (Here is The Hollywood Reporter's coverage of this event.)

Michael also released the bake-off reel for "Transformers 3" on his website, michaelbay.com.  The bake-off reel is the montage shown to visual effects Academy branch members to help determine the final nominees for the Best Visual Effects Oscar.  Each of the 10 bake-off candidates brings a 10 minute reel of finished work as it appeared in the film (no before/after's or breakdowns allowed).  After seeing all the reels, along with brief Q&A with each visual effects supervisor, the visual effects branch votes on the five final nominees.

The edit clearly illustrates the massive amounts of work put into the visual effects of this epic film.  In most cases, these reels are only seen on the night of the bake-off.  Again, thanks to Michael for sharing this impressive reel with the world.




Transformers' Oscars VFX Reel from Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

An Excuse

"So, Todd, why haven't you been posting much lately?" asked a theoretical FXRant reader.

I'll answer your question with a series of images from the new trailer for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

Do Not Be Alarmed

This photo combines three things I love: my hometown of Chicago, Michael Bay (the auteur behind 'splosions!!!), and The A.V. Club, possibly the finest website for film and television articles, discussion and criticism. Chicagoan Keith Phipps was driving around the city on July 20, and spotted this sign, indicating that "Transfomers 3" was shooting around the corner. Read The A.V. Club article for the logical meme-worthy cinematic equivalents of the phrase, "Do Not Be Alarmed." And make sure to read the article's comments-- there are some great ones in there.

photo by Keith Phipps