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MillimeterBeyond the Bake-Off
Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM, Michael Goldman
At this year's visual effects award nominations screening — more popularly known as the Visual Effects Oscar Bake-Off — Rob Legato found himself introducing the effects' reel for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to his peers within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Effects branch. Legato, a previous Oscar winner and Bake-Off veteran, boldly sang Harry Potter's digital praises.
“You won't see anything like this ever again, or at least, not for the next 21 minutes, until Lord of the Rings makes its presentation,” he said, chuckling.
Legato's comment alluded to the fact that all the visual effects' work in all eight films competing for this year's three Visual Effects Oscar nomination slots could well be considered “amazing,” with much of it similar in scope, quality, cost, technical breakthroughs, and story contribution. As usual, the eight films participating in the Bake-Off were chosen by an executive committee consisting of visual effects branch members. (Usually, seven films are picked, but this year, a voting tie allowed eight movies into the Bake-Off).
By the end of the evening, branch members whittled down the eight films (Harry Potter, eventual winner Lord of the Rings, A.I., Cats & Dogs, Jurassic Park III, Pearl Harbor, The Fast and the Furious, and Black Hawk Down) to three — A.I., Lord of the Rings, and Pearl Harbor were announced a few days later as the nominees.
How did those films earn that honor? What separated A.I.'s robots, Rings' creatures, and Pearl Harbor's recreation of historical events from, say, JPIII's and Potter's creatures and Black Hawk Down's recreation of historical events?
There is no clear answer to this question, and the Academy's guidelines leave plenty of room for interpretation: “consideration of the contribution the visual effects make to the overall production, and the artistry, skill, and fidelity with which the visual illusions are achieved.”
Millimeter asked a panel of experts for answers to some frequently asked questions about earning a Visual Effects Oscar. Those experts are Richard Edlund, chairman of the visual effects branch and the Sci-Tech awards committee for the Academy and a seven-time nominee and four-time winner of the Visual Effects Oscar; John Dykstra (three nominations, one Oscar) of Sony Pictures Imageworks; Ken Ralston (seven nominations, five wins) of Sony Pictures Imageworks; and Habib Zargarpour of ILM (two nominations). We also consulted Ray Feeney, winner of four Sci-Tech technical Oscars and recipient of this year's John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation from the Academy for his technical contributions over the years to the enabling of visual effects work because of his numerous compositing tool inventions. (For more on the Sci-Tech Awards, see related story: Arts and Sciences)
How do films get into the Bake-Off?
According to Edlund, the executive committee (a group of 35 people from the effects branch) picks five additional industry veterans to add to its ranks and becomes what Edlund calls “a 40-person steering committee.” That group evaluates an average of 250-plus films each year that are officially listed by the Academy as containing visual effects, and over time, it winnows that number down to between 20 to 30 films, and later, 10 to 15 that feature “significant effects that could be considered representative of our industry,” says Edlund.
“We debate until we get down to 10 to 15,” he says, “and then, the committee votes on seven for the Bake-Off. We then send letters to the producers of those movies, asking them to name the four most deserving and important people in the visual effects area associated with those films, and those people are listed as the ones eligible for the Oscar if their work is nominated. They are the ones who come to the Bake-Off and explain the work.”
Who picks the four Oscar nominees for each film?
Edlund says producers of the film suggest the four names, but he adds that the effects branch reserves the right to perform due diligence and alter those names if necessary.
“Sometimes, you honestly have to toss a coin to decide on the fourth pick because, obviously, many people are involved in creating complicated visual effects,” he says. “This year, in fact, for one particular film [which Edlund declined to name], one of our committee members mentioned that it was unfair for a particular individual to be left off the list of names, and the committee agreed. We voted unanimously to add that person, meaning that the producer's number four selection was taken off the list in this person's favor. The committee does sometimes have to act like a policeman in that area.”
In selecting films, how are digital effects balanced against practical work?
There is no formula for this. The award started out in 1939 as a “special effects” award — the Achievement in Special Effects Oscar. In 1964, it became known as the Achievement in Special Visual Effects award, and in 1972, it became Special Achievement in Visual Effects. These days, it's known as the Achievement in Visual Effects award. (Special Achievement in Visual Effects was last handed out in 1990 for Total Recall, and it is still a possibility if the effects branch ever decides one particular film's work is so far above the field that it alone should be nominated, and therefore, it wins the special Oscar. This happened periodically throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1995, only two films survived the Bake-Off — Apollo 13 and Babe, which won the Oscar.)
The award is now a “visual effects” award, however — a reference to the depth and breadth of the different methods of creating effects, including, but no longer limited to, mechanical methods, and with a general emphasis on computers as the non-mechanical “glue” that holds everything together.
“There are still ‘special’ effects, but not solely mechanical effects anymore,” says Dykstra. “In a way, it's an odd distinction because most physical setups now rely on software and hardware systems to operate efficiently. A traditional definition of a visual effect is two or more elements of film combined into a single image. With the advent of digital imaging, of course, that could be considered two or more subjects captured in a separate media and made to appear as if they were photographed together. But now, obviously, mechanical and digital methods are more intertwined than ever before. Still, you could argue that the illusion of rain created by a guy on stage with a bunch of pipes and hoses is part of the effects mix.”
Dykstra points out that this year's crop of contenders featured extensive mixing of practical and digital methods with, in some cases, a heavy reliance on practical approaches. Pearl Harbor, for instance, filmed extensive real explosions and even destroyed mothballed real ships in Hawaii to anchor ILM's digital wizardry. Likewise, Black Hawk Down and The Fast and the Furious relied extensively on complicated, practical rigs and effects. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, on the other hand, featured digital effects on as grand a scale as the feature film industry has ever seen, while Jurassic Park III built on pioneering digital creature work from its predecessors but used far more extensive and complicated Stan Winston animatronic dinosaurs than those predecessors.
What matters most in surviving the Bake-Off?
Each film's Oscar nominees are responsible for preparing white papers and packets of still images and press clippings for Academy branch members to study in the weeks prior to the Bake-Off. But without a doubt, experts say, the 15-minute effects highlight reel is the weapon most likely to help, or destroy, their chances.
Bake-Off rules are very specific — presenters have only three minutes to introduce the reel, 15 minutes to show the reel (in random order picked from a hat), and five minutes to answer questions about the reel, all under the watchful glare of the ever-present “red light” at the Academy theater in Beverly Hills. No “making of” reels or other marketing techniques are permitted prior to, or during, the Bake-Off. “We tried behind-the-scenes reels for a couple years, but scrapped the idea because some studios were better at producing them than others,” says Edlund. “We felt the work that actually made it onto the screen should be the only thing that mattered.”
Therefore, effects teams behind films invited to the Bake-Off take great care crafting their 15-minute reel.
“Reels must come directly from a release print, so you can't enhance it with shots from a trailer, nor can you tweak the sound track,” says Dykstra. “Therefore, you are cutting both picture and sound to make sure they overlap smoothly. While the reel itself is not about editing, per se, the more polished the editing, the more it helps. You need to take something of a schizoid approach because you need a sense of continuity. That means you need to add non-effects bits that make sense of the effects and give them a sense of flow, so that people who might not have seen the movie will understand the context.”
“I'm convinced the reel is the most important thing because most of the voters already know how this stuff is done since they work in our industry,” adds Ralston. “Therefore, making the reel is no different than making a movie — you are looking for a visceral, intuitive response. In other words, it's about presentation, and that presentation can make up minds, or change minds.”
But ILM's Zargarpour, who has twice been part of nominated efforts (Perfect Storm last year and Twister in 1996), says the Bake-Off reel is an entity unto itself.
“It's an art form all its own. If your film has 400 effects shots, there is no way you can show them all, or even most of them, on the reel. In the case of The Perfect Storm, that was very hard. We had to agonize over letting go some shots, and showing others that better fit because of their length, or because they included effects work that other people created. For instance, there was a lot of practical work done in that film by John Frazier's team, and some of it was subtle, like animatronic swordfish, so we had to figure out where that all fit in to get the best emotional response. Going back and forth also became an issue. After a few people made some changes, we requested a couple shots be added back to the reel, but there was a little miscommunication, and a couple of the wrong shots got onto the reel, and it was too late to change it. We still got nominated, so I guess it turned out all right.”
How to pick a winner?
Once the three nominees survive the Bake-Off, the entire Academy voting membership selects the Oscar winner, as they do in all other categories. This process of letting the “experts” select the nominees and “the general population” the winner has its supporters and critics because it exemplifies the debate about the creative importance of effects to an overall story, as compared to their significant technical accomplishments.
Zargarpour jokes that he prefers “the British method” — the approach taken by the British Academy in handing out its BAFTA awards. There, the general academy selects the nominees, and the effects branch selects the winner.
“I prefer the BAFTAs, because there, we won twice,” he chuckles. (Perfect Storm defeated Gladiator in the U.K. but lost in the Oscar race last year, and same thing happened with Twister versus Independence Day in 1996). “But in either case, you have a mixture of the entire academy and experts making the decision, and people voting based on how they feel. But for the Oscar, you can argue that the specialists are choosing the nominations, so all three films are obviously worthy. Therefore, the way I look at it, the nomination is the big thing. Having gone through the process as both a nominee and a voter, I can see how difficult and imperfect the process is.”
But historically, Visual Effects Oscar winners have usually gone into one of two categories: either “big” effects of a complicated nature on a large scale or “new” effects — films featuring industry-changing work that altered or improved the way movies are made. Titanic might be an example of the big argument, while Babe or Forrest Gump might exemplify the new approach.
Because the entire Academy selects the winner, of course, great box-office success obviously helps, but then again, there are exceptions to that formula, as well — the painterly work of What Dreams May Come beat box-office smash Armageddon in 1998, for instance.
“There are different aspects to the award, depending on the year, the films, and circumstances,” says Feeney. “Some people might think that only knowledgeable practitioners of visual effects should pick the Oscar winner, and I understand that. After all, there is an aspect of the award that relates to how the work has influenced movie-making, or changed movies. Like morphing with Terminator 2, for instance. But many other movies clearly don't have any one shot that is at the pinnacle of the effects industry, but overall, they affect you emotionally, like what happened last year with Gladiator. That film was measured by its overall good work and how that influenced the story, than by its overall poundage. Sometimes, of course, a film can do both, and Lord of the Rings might demonstrate that this year. So you have poundage to consider, and also scale.”
Dykstra thinks that either “big” or “new” is a perfectly legitimate reason for voting for a particular film, but only when such shots directly impact the audience's reaction to the overall story.
“It's a creative award — that is the entire argument that eventually won us the right to create a visual effects branch for the Academy in the first place,” says Dykstra. “You can have overwhelming shots, hundreds of them, and have them all relate to the story, if it is a good movie, and the reverse is true, if it is a bad movie. After all, you needed dinosaurs to have the story for Jurassic Park. Similarly, you could do a Pearl Harbor story without the big effects they had in this film, but you couldn't do this story.”
Ralston agrees, empathetically: “I don't care what it costs, how many shots, how many bodies are left behind, or any numbers. I just care about how the work looks on screen and how it works in context of the story. That's it — that's how I always vote.”
Do all-CG films have any place in the effects discussion?
The role of CG films in the effects category is an ongoing sticky issue. Until recently, CG films had no category through which to seek Oscar glory. Toy Story, of course, won John Lasseter a Special Achievement Oscar in 1995, and this year, the Academy finally created an Oscar category for Best Animated Feature Film. While all animated films were eligible, three CG movies — Shrek, Monsters Inc., and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius — were nominated. Still, those nominations are for “best” animated movie, and do not necessarily reflect any particular technical achievements or visual wizardry, though all three offer viewers plenty of both.
All of which begs the question: What about films like Final Fantasy, that might not qualify for “best” animated picture but featured significant visual effects accomplishments?
“When Toy Story came out, I felt that CG films did belong in our branch,” says Ralston. “As a visual effects person, I think some of the work in some of those films definitely compares favorably to what live-action films with animated effects have accomplished. Great work should be considered. However, most people think those films can get recognized within the animated film category. And, of course, we have the Sci-Tech awards for specific technical advances that might come out of some of these films.”
Feeney, who has been responsible for plenty of those technical accomplishments, adds that, some day down the road, the issue of digital actors, or digitally enhanced actors, will also have to be addressed. After all, if actors wearing makeup or prosthetics can be eligible for Academy Awards, why can't animated characters featuring real voices, real, sophisticated human movement and lip synch via motion capture, and real human skin textures?
“They could create new categories some day in the future, but not soon, and not quickly,” Feeney says. “But this stuff will have to be addressed. I'm not talking about purely synthetic characters, necessarily, but what I call ‘digital makeup.’ If the idea is that creative enhancements to traditional performances can be considered, then we aren't that far away from this idea that digital makeup and motion-capture are merely tools to enhance a realistic, traditional performance.”
Still, as Edlund points out, “No one is eager to create new awards, new categories. There are already probably too many awards as it is.” Thus, “special achievements,” as they always have, will likely be considered and honored individually as they occur in the future. Whenever they become commonplace, they too might someday earn an Oscar of their own.
Oscar winners were announced March 24. Additional information about nominees and winners is available at Millimeter.com and www.oscars.com.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.