All three nominees were surprised that Star Wars: Episode III— Revenge of the Sith wasn’t nominated for its amazing work. ™ & © 2005 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Digital work by ILM.

BR: Do the nominated films — or the Bakeoff list at large — signal trends in visual effects?

DM: I think things are better, faster, easier. We’re refining the tools. There are a lot of smart people all over the world solving problems and solving them faster. Talented people are making the tools — the artists using the tools are adding plug-ins and writing software. There’s a foundation in place now that can be fine-tuned for the shows. We’re getting close to having people walking around on the screen. I’m not interested in creating Marilyn Monroe, but I wouldn’t mind doing something unusual with a person. Motion will become more intelligent — some of that is going on now in crowd scenes and more will be going on. But I don’t know if that makes better movies or better effects.

JL: Visual effects are allowing directors to tell stories without having to create physical worlds that would be cost prohibitive — like Jarhead. They can do the story with visual effects. I think we’ll see more and more characters in films. That’s one of the things they did in Narnia — had multiple characters with speaking parts. With character-oriented performances, it’s less of a question of whether something works technically as a visual effects shot, but whether you believe the character is who he should be. It’s almost like casting. Also, we’re doing more and more of the design work up front. We worked on 1,000 shots before the camera rolled and used that to design how the live action would fit in. Then, after the film was shot, things changed, so we also had postvis.

Joe Letteri predicts we’ll see more CG characters in films in the future. Then, the focus of vfx won’t be technical, but whether the audience believes the character is who he should be.

DW: The shows keep getting bigger. I think that’s OK as long as we’re judicious and only use what’s needed and necessary. I think we’ll see more and more digital characters inhabiting our films. The more you’re able to create characters, the bigger the shows will grow because when you’re using CG characters in storytelling, you have to create the shots. The characters are getting heavier roles, less cartoony in nature. The acting is expected to be more sophisticated and I think demands will be higher and higher on us to deliver that. Environments are becoming prevalent in so many movies now because it’s a huge help to productions. And, the tools are getting better and better for capturing lighting on set and recreating it digitally.

BR: Where do you see room for improvement?

DM: Restraint. Come on… sometimes you can tell more with less. It’s true of everything — acting, lighting, writing, everything. I’ve been saying for a few years now that special effects are not that special any more. After a while, you’re numb to them. Maybe I’m from another era, but I liked it when they were special, unique, unusual to see and you perked up. Now, a lot of shows — not the ones in the Bakeoff — have too many effects that are not dramatically integrated into a story. One place they are using restraint, throwing away stuff, which is good, is with bleach bypass. Any time you drain some of the color out of the shows, it helps the effects work better. And I like the look of the drained color, everything off to one side, cool going to warm. It’s interesting to look at.

DW: Visual effects used to be secretive. Now, people are interested in the craft and we do a lot of how-to stories and behind the scenes DVDs. People learn how we do it. So now we’re not creating a mysterious, amazing thing, we’re not creating magic in front of their eyes that people want to see more and more of. Now, the effects have to be totally integrated and necessary to propel the story along. We’re seeing a maturation of visual effects as a whole. We have to be careful that we’re using the tool appropriately.

BR: Why do you think most of the films in the Bakeoff were fantasies?

JL: Fantasy is a great genre. You don’t have a lot of predictive baggage. You’re not fighting people’s expectation of what the world looks like in 40 years. You can focus on the characters. Lord of the Rings is fantasy. Kong is fantasy. Narnia. People probably think of the original Star Wars as science fiction but George [Lucas] cleverly cast it as fantasy by saying it was not a prediction of the future, but something that happened long, long ago. It frees you up.

Barbara Robertson is an award-winning journalist who has covered visual effects and computer animation for 15 years. She also co-founded the dog photography website dogpixandflix.com. Her most recent travel essay appears in the new Travelers Tales anthology, The Thong Also Rises.