Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 3, 2016. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Feature Films
With four category wins, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was the big winner at the 14th annual VES Awards, with which the Visual Effects Society honours the most outstanding work in the VFX and animation industry.
The J.J. Abrams film took trophies in the categories “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature”, “Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature” and “Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal Project” (both for Falcon Chase/Graveyard), and “Outstanding Models in a Photoreal or Animated Project”, where the BB-8 android was honoured specifically.
“The Revenant” won three awards. Two went to ILM’s impressive CG bear, which attacks Leo DiCaprio, in the categories “Outstanding Animated Performance in a Photoreal Feature” and “Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature”. The film was also honoured for “Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature”.
According to the VES jury, the best effects simulation was the Toxic Storm from “Mad Max: Fury Road”.
Animation, Episode & Commercial
In the animation categories, Disney won with “The Good Dinosaur” and Pixar with “Inside Out”. “Game of Thrones” almost completely occupied the series categories with four awards; only the “Vikings – To the Gates” episode took the Supporting VFX category.
The best commercial was created by The Mill. “SSE – Pier” won in three categories.
Here is the making-of for the commercial:
The Best Student Project
The smallest team, consisting of just two men, Andreas Feix and DP author Francesco Faranna, was able to take the VES Award back to the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, because “Citipati” convinced the jury. Also nominated in the category were “Skål”, the animago entry “Jagon” (both also from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg), and “Korser” from the French university Art FX.
Here is the behind-the-scenes video for “Citipati”:
The making-of for “Skål” can be found in DP 02 : 15. You will be able to read making-ofs for “Jagon” and “Citipati” in one of the upcoming issues of DP.
The overview of all VES Award winners is available here.
