News

The Visual Effects Society just made the Oscar race for Best Visual Effects a lot more interesting, crowning Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes as its choice for top Photoreal Feature Tuesday night at the 23rd Annual Ves Awards. The Apes win came over a field that included heavy Academy Awards favorite Dune: Part Two along with Better Man, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Twisters.

However, the Ves feature award turned out not to be such an accurate predictor of the Oscar winner a year ago, with The Creator winning at Ves, while Godzilla Minus One snared visual effects at the Academy Awards. Avatar: The Way of Water took home both in 2023.

The Apes victory was especially surprising in that it was the film’s only win of the night, while Dune otherwise dominated in tallying four wins, the most of any photoreal feature. Those included triumphs for Best Environment,...

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” won Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, the top feature prize at the 23rd Annual Visual Effects Society Awards and the one that most closely corresponds to the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The celebration of achievement in visual effects took place on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

The sci-fi primate sequel beat “Dune: Part Two,” which went into the evening with the most nominations (seven) and emerged with the most wins (four): Outstanding Achievement in a Photoreal Feature, Outstanding CG Cinematography, Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature and Outstanding Compositing & Lighting in a Feature.

The victory for “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” does not necessarily make the film a frontrunner in the Oscars’ visual-effects race. Over the 22 years of Ves Awards, the winner went on to receive the Oscar 12 times, but the two groups have only matched three times in the last 10 years.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” won the top VFX prize for Best Photoreal Feature at the 23rd annual Visual Effects Society Awards, held February 11 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and hosted by The Sklar Brothers (“What We Do in the Shadows”). This marks the fourth Ves win for the “Apes” franchise and Wētā FX, which also took home the character award for the Robbie Williams CG chimp from “Better Man.”

But “Dune: Part Two” bolstered its status as the VFX Oscar frontrunner for Dneg by grabbing the most live-action awards with four: Oscar-nominated Greig Fraser’s CG cinematography for Arrakis, the Arrakeen Basin environment, simulations for atomic explosions and wormriding, and compositing and lighting.

However, DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” earned top animated film honors and also won four awards. “Civil War,” meanwhile, won the supporting VFX prize for Framestore.

“Shōgun” was named Best Photoreal Episode and snagged three...

It was a rather curious night at the 23rd Ves Awards, which were handed out Tuesday at the Beverly Hilton.

The Visual Effects Society knelt before The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, handing it the marquee prize for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature — but it was the lone win on six nominations for the 10th film in the venerable franchise.

The bigger winners with four apiece were Dune: Part Two, which came into the night with a leading seven nominations, and The Wild Robot, hot off dominating the Annie Awards over the weekend.

That raises a question: Which film has the inside track for the Oscar next month?

Well, the Ves Awards and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences haven’t followed the same script much during the past decade-plus, with only five of the Visual Effects Society’s marquee winners since 2013 going on to score the FX Oscar.

"The Adventures of Tintin" dominated the nominations but it was "Rango" that received the most trophies at the 10th Visual Effects Society (Ves) awards. Stan Lee received the the Lifetime Achievement Award and visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull received the George Melies Award. Patton Oswalt hosted the event held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Antonion Banderas, Lou Ferrigno, director Chris Miller, Marc Webb, and Jennifer Yuh Nelson presented awards. But the surprise appearance by Martin Scorsese was the highlight of the evening.

Here's the full list of winners (highlighted) and nominees of the 10th Annual Ves Awards, to visit our Awards Avenue coverage of other award-giving bodies, winners and nominees, click here:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture

Captain America: The First Avenger

Charlie Noble

Mark Soper

Christopher Townsend

Edson Williams

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Tim Burke

Emma Norton

John Richardson

David Vickery...

The visual effects that we are seeing in movies these days are absolutely mind blowing. At this point it doesn't seem like there's any excuse for a film to have bad visual effects unless the people hired lack talent, or the studio is keeping the cash in their pockets.

There's a lot of good nomination this year such as Captain America, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Out of all of these I think that Planet of the Apes might take home the top prize, those apes were incredibly freaky looking. Weta did an amazing job with this movie, and out of all the other nominations this was the movie I was most impressed by. What are your thoughts? What movie did you think have the best visual effect in 2011?

Here's the full press release with all of the nominations:

Los Angeles,...

The Visual Effects Society (Ves) today announced the nominees for its 10th Annual Ves Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects artistry in 23 categories of film, animation, television, commercials, special venues and video games. Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 7 by distinguished panels of Ves members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank and New York, FotoKem's Spy in San Francisco, and other facilities in London, Sydney, Vancouver and Wellington, Nz.

"The standard of the creative work that is being considered this year is unbelievably high across all categories," said Jeffrey A. Okun, Chair of the Visual Effects Society. "The judges faced a huge challenge because all of the work was so far above the norm. We're honored to have the opportunity to focus the spotlight on the outstanding work that has contributed to some of the highest grossing films and broadcast projects of all time."

As previously announced,...

By Sean O’Connell

hollywoodnews.com: Over the weekend, the Visual Effects Society announced the nominees for its 10th Annual Ves Awards ceremony, recognizing summer tentpoles (“Harry Potter,” “Captain America”) and surprise hits (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Hugo”) for their outstanding visual effects artistry in 23 categories of film, animation, television, commercials, special venues and video games.

“The standard of the creative work that is being considered this year is unbelievably high across all categories,” said Jeffrey A. Okun, Chair of the Visual Effects Society. “The judges faced a huge challenge because all of the work was so far above the norm. We’re honored to have the opportunity to focus the spotlight on the outstanding work that has contributed to some of the highest grossing films and broadcast projects of all time.”

As previously announced, Stan Lee will be honored with the Ves 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award and...