2023 Visual Effects Bake Off

Once again, the SCAD Visual Effects community witnessed another year of the Visual Effects Bake Off on Saturday, January 14! We were able to stream this exciting event for the second year in a row thanks to professor and chair of Visual Effects Gray Marshall, who is also a member of the Academy! Co-hosting this event was professor of Visual Effects Stuart Robertson, who is not only a member of the Academy but also a winner of the Best Visual Effects Oscar for 1998 “What Dreams May Come.”

For those who don’t know, the Visual Effects Bake-Off is where VFX  supervisors “hunt for the Oscar.” This event is considered the semifinal for the Academy Awards, where supervisors pitch the work they did on the film, proving they are “worthy” of winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Every branch of the Academy has a different path toward the Oscar, but the Visual Effects branch, is divided into four categories:

1. The “Long List”: A long list of films accepted to be considered for the Oscar. 
2. The “Short List”: The Branch Membership Committee chooses ten potential films from the Long List, which are presented at the Bake Off. 
3. The “Bake Off”: during this event, participants get to vote, and the 5 Oscar nominations are picked. 
4. Academy Awards Nominees: The Oscar is awarded to only one film. 

To participate in this process, voters must be part of the Academy. They need to have a reputation in the industry, get sponsored by two members of the Visual Effects branch in the Academy, or get an Oscar nomination to become members of this prestigious community.

Professionals from the Visual Effects branch choose who will pass to the Bake Off, but professionals from every Academy branch get to vote for the five nominations. Within these nominations, there are 4 Visual Effects supervisors per film: one is the lead supervisor, two supervisors of different companies that worked in the movie, and the FX supervisor. Fun fact: if they win, each one gets the Oscar Statuette with their name on it.  

For this year’s Visual Effects nominations, the competition is tight with some fantastic films that showed great visuals. Below, I share a small summary of the Visual Effects that characterized each Bake Off film. 

1. “All Quiet on the Western Front”

This war film was the opening movie for the Bake Off. There were many invisible effects involved in this film, and some evident effects like gore and CG explosives. However, one of the most interesting aspects of this film is how they used fog as an emotional aspect as well as portraying the war tank as a menacing creature to add the horror element of war.

2. “The Batman”

This film was characterized by using Virtual Production and CG extensions to create Gotham City. Artists used multiple references from cities around the world to create these environments brought to life in LED screens. Another critical aspect of the Visual Effects in this film was the practical vehicle rigs. Most of the Batmobile scenes were done practically. However, the performance and design of these vehicles were enhanced digitally.

3. “Wakanda Forever”

The most significant aspect of this film was the underwater photography of Black Panther’s sequel. The artists would have a practical baseline and then add digital effects and set extensions on top. The actor’s performance was a combination of dry and wet footage to make a more believable and natural underwater look. Some practical floods and water sequences also enhanced the realism aspects of some scenes.

4. “Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness”

Complex effects have always characterized Doctor Strange’s stories. There were many entirely digital environments and procedural creatures involved. One of the most interesting aspects of this film is the use of digital doubles to enhance the performance of Wanda traveling through distorted mirror realms. In addition to digital aspects, artists also used prosthetics to develop the believability of Zombie Dr. Strange’s character. 

5. “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”

 It is common to identify the effects when seeing magic books, pastries, and elements flying around as a result of the magic within the Fantastic Beast story. However, there were some invisible effects in this movie, for example, the use of High Res Digital Doubles. These were outstandingly executed; one would think it was the actor playing some scenes when it was all digital. Apart from this, artists used puppet creature animation, set dressing, and props to make everything look as practical as possible. In addition, the supervisors emphasized the use of Blue Screen Virtual Production (Not LED), set extensions, and fully digital environments to create a total of 13 environments established in pre-production with little to no alterations. As a result, everything turned out as planned in the world of Fantastic Beast.

6. “Thirteen Lives”

The film that mastered invisible effects within the Bake Off was “Thirteen Lives.” Watching it at first, one would think it was done entirely with practical effects. However, some outstanding photorealistic digital scenes brought this film to life. For example, cave environments and some water simulations were fully digital. Artists also used set extensions and comped crowds to enhance the visuals of this story. Another critical aspect of this film was the underwater detail within the caves to emit a claustrophobic feeling. The crew had to film the underwater footage as clearly as possible to control later, in post-production, the amount of dirt and debris that would be seen underwater. It wouldn’t have been possible to see the footage if it had been shot the other way around.

7. “Top Gun: Maverick”

As many of us learned from the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, most of the effects within this movie were entirely practical. However, there were some hidden digital aspects that many of us would not have noticed. For example, the aviation performance was done practically, but these aircraft designs were developed digitally to match the story’s style. A mind-blowing aspect of matching these digital assets to the live footage was using GPS data, and plane tracking marks to create the 3D camera tracking. Supervisors considered using LED Virtual Production for the lighting integration, but there was no better way to recreate the sunlight and GeForce in the sky than reality itself; therefore, minimum digital effects were used in this film.

8. “Jurassic World Dominion” 

The Jurassic World franchise has always impacted the visual effects industry with innovative techniques. This time was no exception since they used a seamless practical and digital effects combination to bring this story to life. Artists used animatronics, remote-controlled robots, and costumes to create Jurassic World’s creatures. For example, the classic Jurassic Park T-Rex was half animatronic and half digital. I was amazed by how much detail they added to the animatronic skin and then enhanced and combined seamlessly in post-production with the digital body. Apart from the creatures, artists used set extensions, digital environments, and even the classic forced perspective technique to create the world of “Jurassic World Dominion.”

9. “Nope”

This film was heavily focused on sky development with cloud simulations to make the digital “alien” interaction seamless. The film shoot was done during the day to capture detail and then turned into a night scene, so it was accurate to the human sight in the dark. The effects supervisor shared that the goal for the creature simulation was for the details and movement to be plausible and believable as possible; that’s why many of the references they used for it were flowers, origami, and even Marilin Monroe’s dress. 

10. “ Avatar: The Way of Water”

Last but not least, “Avatar: The Way of Water” was the closing movie of the event. Visual Effects artists used almost every FX technology and more to develop this film’s complex and beautiful visuals. To enhance the environments and interaction of actors within the underwater scenes, artists used motion capture underwater tanks and virtual production to develop these scenes. They created a Real-Time Depth System that captured details to generate an underwater mesh. This film was crucial for developing technology for facial capture and water detail interacting with skin, clothes, and hair. The on-ground villages were practical for actors’ interaction but recreated procedurally in CG.

After reading this small summary of each bake-off film FX, feel free to make your predictions of who should be the top 5 Best Visual Effects Oscar Nominees. Voting concludes this week, and the official nominees will be announced around Tuesday, January 24th. If you want to learn more about the Bake Off and last year’s nominees, feel free to read our previous article here!