VES Awards Honor Avatar, Up

Monday, March 01, 2010
By: Thomas J. McLean

Avatar was the big winner at the eighth annual Visual Effects Society Awards, taking home six honors. Disney-Pixar’s Up was the top honoree for animated features, taking three awards.

The VES Awards were presented last night at a gala ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. More than a thousand attendees attended the awards, which presented the VES Lifetime Achievement Award to director James Cameron and the Georges Méliès Award for Pioneering to Ed Catmull.

For those who missed it, the awards will be broadcast Friday, March 5, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Reelz Channel.

Following is the complete list of winners:

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture: Avatar, Joe Letteri, Joyce Cox, Eileen Moran, Richard Baneham

• Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture: Sherlock Holmes, Jonathan Fawkner, Chas Jarrett, David Vickery, Dan Barrow

• Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture: Up, Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera, Steve May, Gary Bruins

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or Special: Disney Prep and Landing – Gadgets, Globes, and other Garish Gizmos, Dorothy McKim, Scott Kersavage, David Hutchins, Kee Suong

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 -Ep. 421 “Daybreak,” Michael Gibson, Gary Hutzel, Jesse Toves, Dave Morton

• Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program: CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Opening Sequence, Rik Shorten, Sabrina Arnold, Steve Meyer, Derek Smith

• Best Single Visual Effect of the Year: Avatar – Neytiri Drinking, Joe Letteri, Joyce Cox, Eileen Moran, Thelvin Cabezas

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial: Audi – Intelligently Combined, Jay Barton, Rafael F. Colon, Ronald Herbst, Chris Fieldhouse

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project: Dance of the Dragons – Eastern, Derry Frost, Michael Morreale

• Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Gulag Extraction, Mark Rubin, Richard Kriegler, Robert Gaines, David Johnson

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Video Game Trailer: Halo 3: ODST – The Life, Robert Moggach, Ryan Meredith, Jens Zalzala, Michael Pardee

• Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture: Avatar – Neytiri, Joe Letteri, Andrew R. Jones, Jeff Unay, Zoe Saldana

• Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture: Up – ‘Carl’- No Dad Scene, Ed Asner, Ron Zorman, Brian Tindall, Carmen Ngai

• Outstanding Animated Character in a Broadcast Program or Commercial: AMF – The Caterpillar, Robert Sethi, Jamie O’Hara, Becky Porter, Steve Beck

• Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture: Up, Jason Johnston, Alexis Angelidis, Jon Reisch, Eric Froemling

• Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture: Avatar – Pandora, Yvonne Muinde, Brenton Cottman, Peter Baustaedter, Jean-Luc Azzis

• Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Broadcast Program or Commercial: Kaiser Permanente – Emerald City, Ben Walker, David Woodland, Kim Taylor, Ben Walsh

• Outstanding Models & Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture: Avatar – Samson/Home Tree/Floating Mountains/Ampsuit, Paul Jenness, Rainer Zoettl, John Stevenson-Galvin, Simon Cheung

• Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture: Avatar – Jungle/Biolume, Eric Saindon, Shadi Almassizadeh, Dan Cox, Ula Rademeyer

• Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial: V – Pilot “Atrium and Ship Interiors,” Chris Zapara, Chris Irving, David Morton, Trevor Adams

• Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture: District 9, Shervin Shogian, Hamish Schumacher, Janeen Elliott, Simon Hughes

• Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial: CSI Crime Scene Investigation - Ep. 1001 Opening Sequence, Derek Smith, Christina Spring, Steve Meyer, Zach Zaubi

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project: They Will Come to Town, Thilo Ewers

Reader Comments

• Rick Lasse :

  Monday, March 01, 2010

  Did they see Coraline.....I SAID---HEY, DID THEY SEE CORALINE????? That should have won for animation !!!!!!!