2024 Visual Effects BAKE OFF

Award season is back once again! For the third year in a row, the SCAD Visual Effects department hosted the screening of the 2024 Visual Effects Bake Off. Thanks to professor and chair of the department, Gray Marshal, students were able to witness one of the most exciting yet extensive experiences of this award season. Along with Professor Marshal, Professor Mark Lasoff (Oscar winner for Best Visual Effects for Titanic) was also present to support and walk us through the event. 

The Bake Off is known as the “Hunt for the Oscar”, as Visual Effects artists and supervisors get to showcase their work and prove why the project deserves to be an Oscar nominee for Best Visual Effects. All branches of the Academy have their own process to pick the top 5. The Visual Effects Branch follows the steps below to reach the Oscar:

1. The “Long List”: they begin narrowing down the possible nominees
2. The “Short List”: members pick 10 nominees from the long list that will be reviewed at The Bake Off
3. The “Bake Off”: from the 10 nominees, members of the branch pick the top 5 Oscar nominees which can be considered the best honor. 
4. The Oscars: anyone from any branch of the Academy can vote to win the famous statuette. 

To be part of this process, voters need to be members of the Academy by passing the Branch’s Membership Committee. To do this, they need to be Nominated for an Academy Award or be nominated by 2 members of the corresponding branch. There can only be one sponsorship a year. 

This year’s Bake Off can be considered a surprising one. Compared to last year’s experience, this one is proving to be quite unpredictable. Who will get nominated? Who will be the Oscar winner? Only time will tell. 

1. The Creator

Supervisors Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts, and Neil Corbould started the event by showcasing the beautiful blend between human performance and CG that was part of this film. With a rigid body track and a synthetic edge on the render for the robotic head, this team showed polished hybrid characters of humans and robots. Not only did they push the Visual Effects on the characters, but also they enhanced the environments with matte paintings, photogrammetry, projections, and collaboration with special effects to enhance the debris of the explosions. 

2. Godzilla Minus One

Unlike most of the films that were part of this event, “Godzilla Minus One” had a very low budget, with a team of just 35 artists who were responsible for many parts of the pipeline. Panelists described their impressive achievements. Director and visual effects supervisor Kiyoko Shibuya highlighted the work of Tatsuji Nojima, who not only contributed as a compositor, but his amazing skills as an FX artist allowed Shibuya to push forward the water simulation shots for the film. Something that was not originally intended until Nojima’s talent was discovered during production. The production’s preparation and artists’ collaboration with multiple creative approaches made this film come to life. Their workflow consisted of blending the traditional CG method with green screen and adding a more rigid animation for Godzilla by focusing on the nuances of the creature. 

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Visual Effects Supervisors Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams, and Theo Bialek discussed a variety of new approaches for the sequel of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise. With approximately 3 thousand shots, this film was full of CG and practical puppets to push forward the performance of all the creatures that were key to the story of this particular film. Apart from this, their contribution included virtual production, motion capture, CG sets, and simulations. However, overall the goal was to focus on Rocket’s animalistic features since, as the supervisors mentioned, that was the heart of the movie. 

4. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny 

One of the key aspects of this film’s visual effects contribution was transforming Harrison Ford into a 1944 Indiana Jones. Supervisors described how the de-aging process of Harrison Ford was unique for each shot. With over 100 head turns, the team had to look back at the archives and combine renders to achieve a believable result. Apart from this, the film had some beautiful underwater- fully- digital shots, which VFX contribution went hand in hand with CG extensions, flames/smoke, crowds, city elements and a combination of special effects, stunts and digital assets within the whole film.

5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1

This film was focused on a more traditional Visual Effects approach. Its contribution consisted of CG set extensions for outside environments and interior scans for the train sequence. Apart from this, it had digital cars, sand simulation, blue and green screens, motion-controlled and digital crowds.

6. Napoleon

Even though this film had a slightly comedic approach towards the story, the Visual Effects were still taken seriously as the artists showed a lot of graphic gore and war elements such as canons and explosions. Visual Effect Supervisors Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Marin-Fenouillet and Simone Coco, emphasized their work combining in-camera practical effects and digital effects for battle sequences. There was a heavy collaboration with the special effects team led by Neil Corbould, Special Effects and Prosthetic Supervisor, whose work was enhanced digitally in post. The painterly style of the film was polished through digital visual effects, making the look of the film be a reference of Napoleon’s paintings, particularly in the Waterloo battle. 

7. Poor Things

Simon Hughes (Creative Director), Tim Barter (Digital Effects Supervisor), Dean Koonjul (Digital Effects Supervisor), and Jane Paton (2D Lead Compositor) were some of the leads responsible for the beautiful yet bizarre look of “Poor Things”. With a more surrealistic style and an old color palette, these artists pushed forward different approaches to tell the story of “Poor Things”. The hybrid animals that were part of the film were created through a combination of photography and CG scans. Apart from this, LED screens, Matte Paintings, fantastical CG elements, and even miniatures were used to transform the worlds of this movie. The panelists emphasized that one of the biggest challenges for this film was maintaining the miniature scale when combining both the element and live-action plates. In addition to this, they also used a fisheye lens which posed some challenges with its resolution. Overall all the elements, particularly the LED virtual production environment, contributed to the key element of the movie’s surreal style.

8. Rebel Moon a Child of Fire

This film was characterized by the practical and digital effects harmony to enhance the performance. They used an optical irregularity library with lens effects to add in compositing. Apart from this they also had digital worlds and an anamorphic creature that took 9 months to complete. Supervisors Marcus Taormina, Robert Winter, Ken McGaugh, and Michael Gaspar discussed the challenges behind the creature’s development, particularly since it had no pre-viz. Its large-scale feathers and details were a challenge that required improving the dynamics across the creature’s anatomy. In addition to this creature, they took an old-school technique to practically develop the rig for the Scorpio chair which, in combination with a parallelogram and a green screen, were able to have a smooth result.  

9. Society of the Snow

Supervisors Felix Berges, Laura Pedro, Ezequiel Larry, and Pau Costa walked us through the recreation of this story’s plane crash by using multiple approaches such as simulations, photogrammetry, photography, and minor use of green screen. Even though some assets were digital in combination with virtual production, most of the performance was on location. The biggest challenge the artists had to face while shooting was the lack of snow. It had to be solved by adding fake snow on set and extending the environment in post. Other than this, the recreation of the avalanche was a big combination of CG elements for the exterior of this phenomenon and practical elements for the interior. 

10. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

This film breaks from the traditional Academy Visual Effects Branch approach by not being fully live-action. It breaks free from realism, entering into the artistic world. Michael Lasker (Visual Effects Supervisor), Alan Hawkins (Head of Character Animation), Bret St. Clair, and Pav Grochola  (Spider-Verse Look Supervisors) discussed how they developed tools in compositing to push forward the style of six different worlds from which 5 were completely new. From watercolor to ink-like effects it was all a harmony of different departments. To create the villain, the Spot, they combined 2D animation along with FX simulations to push forward the painterly fluid look. Apart from the new lighting and brush systems tool to develop worlds, another key element that needed to be created in post was the line work, which would not be possible with traditional rendering. For the live-action element of the film, the Spider-Man web references came from live-action and were stylized in post. 

Overall, this year’s Visual Effects Bake Off was full of variety and surprises. Will the Academy get out of the box and nominate the new Visual Effects approach of “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” or will they consider the more traditional visual effects approach of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1”? This question will be answered on Tuesday, January 23rd once the official Oscar Nominees are announced.