Besides box office glory, the next best thing for studios is awards season recognition, which explains why as soon as voting begins, contributions from VFX supervisors, animation supervisors, and all manner of digital artists are no longer kept hidden in dark closets; breakdown reels magically appear online. In 2024, most media soothsayers didnt register the latest version of a famous kaiju on their radar, let alone as a serious contender for anything except puzzled eyebrows. But their clairvoyant skills took a serious radioactive heat ray blast when Godzilla Minus One took home the Best Visual Effects Oscar, the first non-English film to win the award and only the second time a director was honored as a member of the visual effects team. This year, the five nominees for VFX Oscar gold at the 97th Annual Academy Awards are all in the hunt; any could win without too much hand wringing. However, one surprising omission was Ridley Scotts epic, Gladiator II, which among its digital trickery cleverly utilized SPMTs (Self-Propelled Modular Transporter) on naval battles to transport and choreograph ships on land before later adding CG water.Heres this years breakdown congrats to all the nominees: Every year theres always an outlier; this time its Better Man, which reimagines British popstar Robbie Willliams as a chimpanzee dealing with the pitfalls of fame and struggles to overcome mental illness. Alien: Romulus is the latest entry in the Academy Award-winning Alien franchise. Fede lvarezs sci-fi horror thriller bridges the narrative gap between the revered contributions of Scott and James Cameron. Another film hoping to achieve its predecessors awards success is Denis Villeneuves Dune: Part Two, which amps up the action sequences and adapts the signature sandworm-riding moment from Frank Herberts seminal book. Given that there are only two human characters cast against an impressive lineup of CG primates all delivering spoken dialogue in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one wonders if the moment has finally arrived to reward the latest prequel in the venerable franchise. However, there is the distinct possibility that a song and dance routine will take center stage March 2 at the Dolby Theatre as Jon M. Chus juggernaut Wicked has everything from talking CG creatures to immense fantasy landscapes and epic musical numbers.To get a better understanding of what captured the attention of the voting members of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, here are work summaries for each of the nominees. Alien: RomulusEric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane MahanNarratively set between Alien and Aliens, the nineth installment of the sci-fi franchise took advantage of miniatures, animatronics, stop-motion animation and digital effects. The mantra was to capture as much in-camera so to embody the spirit of the first two films. However, thats not to say that CG was in short supply, especially when dealing with zero-G, multiple facehuggers running along spaceship floors, and plenty of rampaging xenomorphs. Machine learning was used to recreate actor Ian Holm, who played a generic android science officer in the original film. One major action sequence that brought all the departments together happens inside of an elevator shaft, where practical sets and CG atmospherics sold the idea of a zero-G environment while several shots involved shifting between live-action Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) to CG Carradine and CG xenomorph back to the live-action Carradine. Miniatures were used in depicting the exterior Corbelan IV spaceship and probe shots as they informed the painting and finishing details of the CG versions. One of the most complicated effects to achieve were the planetary rings of LV-410; the rings of Saturn were used as reference. https://www.facebook.com/ILMVFX/videos/alien-romulus-breakdown/861440499302460/ - (couldnt get it to play nice with our article) Better ManLuke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft and Peter StubbsSole vendor Wt FX has established an international reputation for producing photorealistic and believable digital primates. But in this case, rather than translating a human performance into its animalistic equivalent, it was more about having a chimpanzee act like a human. Robbie Williamss physical traits were incorporated into his ape persona, such as his peroxide blonde dyed hair that was also shaved to create tattoos. In the end, three different aged versions of the popstar had to be created, using motion capture as a starting point, ultimately attired in 226 costumes and had 50 different hair styles. Several complex musical numbers were choreographed; the most complicated involved two separate locations, five digital costume changes, and 500 dancers for a oner that stitched together 5,334 frames. 2,000 extras were augmented with 108,000 crowd agents for the reenactment of the Knebworth Park concert, followed by full CG shots that take place underwater where he battles 110,000 past versions of himself. New technology was developed that allowed the visual effects pipeline to receive data files from concert stage lightboards so that the lighting setup could be accurately emulated digitally. Dune: Part TwoPaul Lambert, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe and Gerd NefzerThe overall mantra on the film was to treat the visuals individually when deciding what techniques should be deployed to achieve them. For three months, a splinter unit was devoted to executing the maiden sandworm ride of Paul Atreides (Timothe Chalamet); this iconic moment from the book had to live-up to fan expectations. And when weather conditions hampered shooting, that same splinter unit was also responsible for capturing footage that involved CG blood flows combined with a prosthetic baby in a tank to create Alia Atreides, who had been genetically impacted by her mother drinking the Water of Life. Another signature element were the Fremen characters blue eyes, courtesy of their spice consumption. Machine learning improved efficiency of the effect, allowing it to be applied to more shots.To help ensure proper lighting conditions that could be copied in post-production, sand-colored and black screens were used provide the correct bounce light and shading conditions for sequences such the Harvester Attack. For the nuclear explosion, creating the desired background mayhem meant a substantial amount of digital crowd running had to be motion captured and simulated. A 35-second all-digital sequence required motion capture performances of Fremen and Harkonnen fighting each other, concluding with a live-action shot of Chani (Zendaya) turning to watch the Imperial Tent explode. Kingdom of the Planet of the ApesErik Winquist, Stephen Unterfranz, Paul Story and Rodney BurkeThis storied franchise has come a long way since the days of Charleton Heston and Roddy MacDowell. Building off their technical achievements on Avatar: The Way of Water, Wt FX made good use of stereo facial cameras to create a 3D depth mesh of an actors face, which better captures their facial nuances. The other element taken from the Avatar sequel were the water simulations that play a pivotal role in several key action set within a river and a flooded silo. The film upped the VFX difficulty by significantly increasing the amount of dialogue spoken by the digital primates; the orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) was quite the chatterbox.There are only two human characters in the film; most of the principal cast consists of CG creatures. A Simulcam system was developed that enabled live playback of the motion capture actors as simple 3D apes, which guided the framing and composition of shots. Unreal Engine assisted in mapping out scenes and environments. Decommissioned coal factories and power plants were turned into ruined structures nearly engulfed by Mother Nature. Even though production employed a greenery department, the vegetative overgrowth had to be digitally augmented and extended to achieve the desired scope. Other animals enjoying significant screen time were the iconic birds of the Eagle Clan. Producing the majestic raptors pushed the studios feather system to the limits. The protagonist Noa (Owen Teague) originally resembled Caesar, so the actors motion-captured asymmetric physical traits were emulated as well as his mannerisms, like way he moved his limps to indicate frustration or apprehension. WickedPablo Helman, Jonathan Fawkner, David Shirk and Paul CorbouldEmbracing the Old Hollywood tradition of massive physical sets was critical to the design and execution of the films complicated musical numbers. Multiple numbers required hundreds of performers onstage together. Among the films many practical accomplishments were Emerald City, Emerald City Express, a rotating library, a mechanical head representing the Wizard of Oz, and 9 million tulips. However, numerous CG set extensions were still needed to help sell the desired scope and scale for environments. One of the films major challenges was to make magic elements, like a glowing book, look fantastical without appearing cartoony. Everything had to grounded in something that look realistic. When it came to the flying monkeys or the goat professor, Doctor Dillamond, nuanced motion capture performances had to be retained while not breaking away from the fact that the characters were CG animals, not humans.One of the films signature moments is when Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) flies in the Defying Gravity sequence. Visual effects worked closely with the stunt department to get the right center of gravity, proper lighting, and actor movements. Elphabas green prosthetic make-up was digitally enhanced to ensure continuity from shot to shot. And when it came to showing the origin of the Tin Man and Scarecrow, character transformations employed a combination of prosthetic and digital effects. Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.