Fifteen features shortlisted for the VFX Oscar Award.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films have been selected as semifinalists for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 82nd Academy Awards.
The films are listed below in alphabetical order:
• Angels & Demons
• Avatar
• Coraline
• Disney’s A Christmas Carol
• District 9
• G-Force
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Sherlock Holmes
• Star Trek
• Terminator Salvation
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• 2012
• Watchmen
• Where the Wild Things Are
In early January, the members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee, who selected the semifinalists, will narrow the list to seven.
All members of the Visual Effects Branch will be invited to view 15-minute excerpts from each of the seven shortlisted films on Thursday, January 21. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar consideration.
The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2009 will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
I went linked each movie title to its IMDB page for your convenience 
Scott Patton, a senior member at ZBrush Central, posted some stills of his work on Avatar.
The original post can be found here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=079195
“I started working on Avatar 3 years ago and was working with Zbrush 2 ( that means no subtools!!) I had to work on a fairly slow laptop so that I could work directly with Jim Cameron on the mocap stage.
I was really green as a 3D artist but jumped in with both feet, after all this time I still really love the stuff we produced at Stan Winston Studio / Legacy effects.I was part of the group of artists that Designed the Na’vi characters I was responsible for working out Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) Digital sculpts with expressions as a proof of concept for the look of the Na’vi people. I also did the designs for Norm (Joel Moore) as well as the Grace ( Sigourney Weaver}.
We also designed the Viper wolfs from a sketch of Camerons.
And fleshed out and detailed the head of the Banshee and figured out how it would function, that was a Neville Page designHere are some of the Images that I did for the film Hope you like them, It was a long while ago, it’s amazing how far CG has come from way back when these were done.”
The images are too large to fit in the text area so here are links to the images.
Neytiri Facial Expressions NF_V-2_03
Neytiri Zoe Pose NF-S_V-1_002a
Jake Avatar Facial Expression JE-S_V-1_01
Jake Avatar JE-S_V1_02
Avatar Same eye-Chin Project 880
Avatar xsi screen grab Same eyes chin
Banshee New Vents New Jaw Bone V-6_01.1
Banshee V-6_02
Banshee Full Open New Vents V-6_05
Image – No Title Given
Avatar – Norm 3D Turnaround V-S_002
Project 880 Norm-Avatar
Avatar – Norm V-s-c_001
Avatar-Grace V-S-1_002
V-S-1_003
Avatar-Grace V-S-1_001
Welcome Webster Siggraphers to another awesome episode of our last meeting. For all of you who missed the great meeting we had for our holiday party, you missed a great holiday party. There was even a batmobile given out, not a literal batmobile, a little tiny figure of a batmobile that made you wish you had a real batmobile.
Anyway, first point of the news, we not officially have a facebook page, not just a group. If you aren’t already a fan, go find it and become one of our many fans. Woot!
Also, for all you late nighter study groups/individuals, the cybercafe (the coffee joint in the library) is going to be open until 9:00pm. Please go by there even if you don’t need the caffeine. This is a test run and if they don’t get enough business, they’ll keep the old hours, closing at 4pm. Ridiculous.
The Mr. Gorlok Competition is coming to Webster University in January? It was unclear because it was worded in horrible grammar and said come in January to get a break from studying for your finals… in January… But from what we could get out of it, it’s a male talent show where each extracurricular group sends a male to represent their group. Chris Sagovac has already stepped up and said he’d do it. I’ve got $10 for him right now.
Princess and the Frog is coming out this Friday! Being the only 2d, hand drawn movie in theaters/production for theater, you should go see it and support the old fashion/amazing style of hand drawn animation. I know I’m going to see it about eleventy billion times.
Kinematifest people, you have a meeting coming up next Wednesday. You’ll be getting e-mails as a reminder, but I’m reminding you now.
Coolfire is looking for a new intern, sweet deal. For anyone who’s interested in web development just go to the front page and there’s a pretty little exert of what you need to do to get an internship. Also, there’s talk of Coolfire having a script (the story script) intern coming this summer although it’s only a rumor at the moment.
On next Friday the 18th, the animation senior overview class is going to be showing their work at 1:00 in Sverdrup 101. There’s also going to be other work from other classes and might include a stop motion animated short. I’ve personally seen the overview work and we’ve all poured our hearts, souls, and sanity into it. It’s going to be awesome so please go check it out and enjoy the pretty colors.
And the last announcement, a very important one. Next meeting, which will be in January, we are going to have elections again. Sadly, our awesomely amazing president, Leah Bend, is stepping down from her position to give someone else a shot. We will vote on who that person might be at that meeting, if your interested, show up at that meeting, it’s quite important. The position of Treasurer might be open as well.
And for all you thousands of readers out there, peace out.