VFX industry predictions for 2015
January 22, 2015
ILM: What was the year 2014 like for them?
February 9, 2015
The awards season is here and the golden globes aired just a few weeks back. With the hit duo of Fey and Pohlear hosting it for the third and final time, the ceremony was certainly a force to watch out for. But we are not here to discuss the success of the show or any of the event details, so let’s move on to the topic at hand. Which feature films were nominated to the animated movie category and who took home the award?
The nominees for the Best Animated Feature Film
Big Hero 6
The Big Hero 6 didn’t turn into a global avalanche like frozen but it did make a mark in animation history! The real hero of this movie is not Baymax, the very huggable robot, but the team that built the technology which made Baymax and rest of the movie possible.
The Hyperion is a light rendering software that took two years and 200 computing hours to build. By the time, this movie was set to be made, the software was not even tested. Don Hall explained that even though the CTO of Walt Disney Animation Studio, Andy Hendrickson, was not even sure if the software would work, the character tests showed that Baymax needed to be hallow and glow for it to have the charm they desired. And the visuals that the software produced were so stunning that the Don Hall and Chris Williams decided to go ahead and take the risk anyway!
The Book of Life
The Book of Life is an awe-inspiring story line taken straight from the cultural books of Mexico that talk about the day of death. As a children’s movie, it looks towards teaching children the value of leading a moral life and about following their own path. A movie put together to reach the heart of kids is without the right character creation would never succeed. That is why the characters of Manolo, Maria, Mary Beth, Jaoquin and their journey needed to stand out and sure did!
The Boxtrolls
The Boxtrolls is a perfect combination of art and science using stop motion to make the entire movie. Stop motion is a technique that has been used in the making of classics like King Kong and is a rather pain staking way to make a movie where every character has to be hand crafted. These characters are then placed on the sets to take pictures of every shot which is then strung into an entire clip. But this movie did see the use of some technology that saved the makers a whole lot of pain. 3D printing technology that they used allowed them to give the characters more lifelike expressions, especially as they could be printed in the thousands. And even then, it took 30 animators 18 months and 79 sets to make this movie.
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Dream Works unleashed their secret weapon during the making of this movie. The Apollo technology took 5 years to make in collaboration with Intel and it was certainly worth it. The advanced suite of tools that comes with this technology handed artists the tools that made it easier and quicker to create and do so much more than they could before! Doesn’t that make sense considering how amazing the visuals in this movie looked? The fight sequences and the elaborate environments are of course stunning but that one scene when Toothless gets annoyed with Hiccup for senselessly risking his life and the display of emotions in that one scene shall remain etched in our minds forever.
The Lego Movie
Co-director Chris Miller responded to a tweet stating that this movie is mostly a result of CG animation, a little stop motion and some real Lego still sets comped in. To add to the authenticity of the movie, the team actually played around with Lego sets to grasp exactly what the digital image should like. The results of this was so stunning that the audience is confused at most places as to what was CG and what was the real in the movie!
Predictions
Indiwire took a few guesses and said that The Lego Movie was most likely to win but How to Train Your Dragon 2 stood a chance too.
Who actually won?
The result proved that Indiwire wasn’t too off with their guessing when How to Train Your Dragon 2 walked away with the award this year!
If you haven’t seen How to Train Your Dragon 2 yet, here is the trailer to encourage you to get around to it sooner rather than later!
Anoop Chaphekar
Last updated: October 4, 2024
A Fine Arts Graduate, Anoop brings 20+ yrs experience in the VFX and Animation industry. He brings his expertise in Animation-VFX for Television Commercials to Visual Effects for feature films, TV and Web series.
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