The blue-skinned aliens of Avatar proved golden for Weta Digital, after the Wellington company took home the Oscar statuette for best visual effects. The gong was one of three the sci-fi smash hit picked up at last night’s awards ceremony, including best art direction, which was shared by another Kiwi, Kim Sinclair. The film was widely tipped to win best picture, but lost out to the other top contender, The Hurt Locker. More..
Category: WETA Digital
Weta Digital, which intends to tackle production-related problems with its new R&D unit, handled establishing mothership shots in District 9. © 2009 Sony Pictures. Weta Digital recently formed a dedicated R&D group headed by former Autodesk senior manager Sebastian Sylwan. He will be going to SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans in two weeks to recruit talent for the group. The aim is to bridge the gap between R&D and production. Sylwan and Joe Letteri, a Weta Digital partner and visual effects supervisor on Avatar, spoke to VFXWorld exclusively about the new R&D unit. More..
A team from Weta Digital has taken out the special visual effects award at the British equivalent of the Oscars. Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew Jones accepted the award in London today for their work on Avatar.
Back in New Zealand, visual effects supervisor Eric Saindon said there was a lot of excitement around the Weta Digital office when news of the win came through by text message. “Everyone’s pretty ecstatic about it, it’s pretty fun to get this award.” More..
Weta Digital’s Dr Mark Sagar is part of a team that has won a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for innovations in visual effects technology used on Avatar. The Sci-Tech Awards presentation has taken place in Los Angeles, two weeks before the Oscar ceremony. Sagar is part of a team honoured for innovations in visual effects technology used on the films Avatar and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. More..
Bill Desowitz writes: Now that it’s toppled Titanic at the box office and has become a best picture Oscar contender, Avatar is the talk of the industry. Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor for Weta Digital, kicks off our VFX Oscar coverage with his analysis. More..
As Peter Jackson told us earlier, his vision for Susie Salmon’s afterlife in The Lovely Bones (which Paramount Pictures opened wide last weekend) was a surreal, in-between journey to heaven predicated dreams and metaphoric symbols. A house in the dead cornfield represents her murderer, Mr. Harvey; the blooming flower suggests Susie’s life force and her ability to communicate with her father; the Gazebo in the barley field signifies unfulfilled love, with the field turning to mush as she runs toward it.
Interestingly, the vfx challenges for Weta Digital were more artistic than technical, even though the CG imagery of the In-Between world necessitated abandoning the laws of physics. More..