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VES Awards<br />
Top visual effects winners<br />
are hailed at awards event<br />
KromA, a visualeffects<br />
studio in the<br />
US, reckoned it drank<br />
its way through $1,000<br />
of energy drinks to<br />
turn around the video<br />
for Britney Spear’s<br />
Toxic single. It took<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany just<br />
three weeks to<br />
work on the promo,<br />
including creating<br />
a CG model of the<br />
popster herself.<br />
T<br />
he cream of the industry’s visual effects artists<br />
gathered in Hollywood in February for the third<br />
annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards,<br />
which saw honours going to films such as The Aviator,<br />
Spider-man 2, The Incredibles, and music videos such<br />
as Britney Spear’s Toxic.<br />
The awards, which celebrate the best visual<br />
effects artistry in film, television, <strong>com</strong>mercial, music<br />
promos, and games, also handed out a VES Lifetime<br />
Achievement Award to Robert Zemeckis, which was<br />
presented by actor Tom Hanks.<br />
US-based KromA won the Outstanding Visual Effects<br />
in a Music Video category for its work on Toxic, which<br />
saw the studio create a photoreal 3D model of Spears,<br />
recreate London and Paris as CG enviroments from<br />
2D concept drawings, and deploy particle effects for<br />
an exploding glass sequence.<br />
“We essentially worked round the clock,”<br />
said VFX supervisor Bert Yukich, who collected the<br />
award. “We went through $1,000 of energy drinks.”<br />
WINNING THE AWARD<br />
FROM VES IS THE ICING<br />
ON THE CAKE<br />
BENOIT GIRARD<br />
<strong>Digit</strong>al Dimensions picked up a gong for<br />
Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast<br />
Program for the ABC television pilot Lost (main image).<br />
It created a riveting plane crash sequence that formed<br />
the heart of the show. “Winning the award from VES was<br />
the icing on the cake with a project like this one,” said<br />
<strong>Digit</strong>al Dimension’s president Benoit Girard.<br />
Best effect of the year went to the tidal wave in the<br />
movie The Day After Tomorrow, and Star Trek Enterprise<br />
scooped the award for Outstanding Visual Effects in<br />
a Broadcast Series. Best CG character in a live action<br />
feature was awarded for the work on Hippogriff in<br />
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.<br />
VES, www.visualeffectssociety.<strong>com</strong><br />
Winners at VES<br />
included (from left<br />
to right) films such as<br />
Spider-man 2, The Day<br />
After Tomorrow, Harry<br />
Potter and the Prisoner<br />
of Azkaban, and The<br />
Incredibles.<br />
Skive shows<br />
Rhodes site<br />
Celebrity chef Gary<br />
Rhodes has had his<br />
official Web site<br />
redesigned by Skive<br />
Creative – giving it a<br />
more sophisticated<br />
look-&-feel, says<br />
the design studio. A<br />
stainless steel and<br />
black colour scheme<br />
was deployed, with<br />
a clean layout that<br />
“replicates his nononsense<br />
approach<br />
to cooking”.<br />
garyrhodes.<strong>com</strong><br />
CG sharks<br />
Sway to CG<br />
US-based Sway<br />
Studio has created<br />
a photo-real CG<br />
aquarium and filled<br />
it with sharks with a<br />
powerful hankering<br />
for fast food in<br />
providing visual<br />
effects services for<br />
a new McDonald’s<br />
spot. The spot was<br />
created by shooting<br />
the woman against<br />
green screen and<br />
<strong>com</strong>positing her<br />
with the CG fish.<br />
Sony plans<br />
Walk‘phone’<br />
Sony Ericsson will<br />
unveil a mobile<br />
phone-cum-digital<br />
music player in<br />
March. The phone<br />
will carry a name<br />
that has already<br />
appeared on some<br />
350 million music<br />
players over the<br />
last 25 years: the<br />
Walkman brand<br />
of Sony Ericsson’s<br />
parent <strong>com</strong>pany,<br />
Sony. It will play<br />
MP3s.<br />
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