Boyd Shermis and Mark Stetson were very impressed with the character design for Davy Jones. © 2006 Disney Enterprises Inc. and Jerry Bruckheimer Inc. Courtesy of ILM.

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It's Oscar time, so once again, VFXWorld spoke with this year's nominated visual effects supervisors -- John Knoll for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Boyd Shermis for Poseidon and Mark Stetson of Superman Returns -- to discuss each other's work and last year's accomplishments, which included ILM's Imocap system for Dead Man's Chest, full volumetric 3D water simulation from ILM, MPC and Scanline for Poseidon and improved image-based rendering by Sony Pictures Imageworks for Superman Returns.

Thomas J. McLean: Looking at this year's nominees, what made Poseidon stand out?

John Knoll: I think that the work looks really good. I was pretty impressed with it on bakeoff night. I think the water is pretty convincing. That's pretty hard stuff, as I now well know from doing stuff like that on Pirates 3. And that's just the water. The ship itself is pretty impressive too.

Mark Stetson: I liked the underwater scenes after the ship capsized. I thought the water was the focus of the movie, and water was the focus of some of the scenes in our movie. We had to solve many of the same problems. I was particularly struck by the artfulness of some of the underwater shots. I also particularly liked when you got in close (on the ship) toward the end of that opening shot.

TJM: How about Superman Returns?

Boyd Shermis: Most people would point to, and I still point to, the 747 crash. Most of the flying is pretty good. Sony did the build on that if I'm not mistaken. But there are certain things about the Imageworks rendering that feel a little too velvety to me and not too lifelike. There's just something about it that kind of bugs me.

JK: Superman's got a lot of things to like about it. There's a large variety of work and I think a lot of it looks really good. I like parts of the airplane sequence and I like the space shots.

TJM: And Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest?

BS: I was very impressed with the Davy Jones character. The miniature work, the landscapes, the mattes, the digital water. I would say it's Davy Jones, the quality of the rendering on the face and clothing.

MS: Davy Jones. I think John did a nice job solving the problem that he had, which is to work the character design to the end and the need to make a performance out of it. It was very artful and he had a nice opportunity and he did a really good job capitalizing on it.

TJM: What effects most impressed you this year?

Knoll and Stetson found the water convincing in Poseidon. Both vfx supervisors also found the ship equally impressive. © Warner Bros.

BS: I would point to Davy Jones and the work they did (on Pirates) just in using their Imocap system. I wouldn't say it was a quantum leap forward, it was a step forward in the way we can integrate CG characters into a live action environment. I was also impressed by some of the dragon work that was done on Eragon. Children of Men, there were a number of really impressive shots in there and most people wouldn't have recognized it if they hadn't seen the film. In X-Men, the anti-aging routine that was done on the two lead characters, that was pretty impressive. Certainly the destruction of the home was, I thought, well done. The miniature work in Casino Royale ended up being pretty impressive to me, as well as the way they integrated a lot of their visual effects overall.

MS: I was impressed with the overall level of quality and sophistication in the visual effects this year, throughout all the films that were represented. I just though that everything is becoming so smooth and sophisticated. I think the overall level of quality at the bakeoff was really remarkable. It was hard to find a clinker in the whole group. I really liked the work in X-Men, the way the physical effects integrated with the postproduction visual effects.

TJM: Were there any surprises in the films chosen or not chosen either for the bakeoff or the nominations?

JK: I was surprised at a couple of omissions. I thought Mission: Impossible III probably should have been on the long list and Charlotte's Web should have been on the long list.

Casino Royale, I think, while it turned out real well and I loved the movie, I just don't think the achievement is there compared to what everybody else is doing.