Nominees for the 1st Annual International 3D Awards have been announced and Jason Schleifer, animation lead at Weta Digital (LORD OF THE RINGS), will host the Short Films category at the ceremony to be held in the evening, May 9, 2003 at the 3D Festival 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Schleifer also chaired and oversaw the judging process for the Short Films category with an international panel of jury members from the 3D industry. The short film nominees are:
- SHOW & TELL, Kapow Pictures, Australia
- THE CHUBBCHUBBS, Sony Pictures Imageworks, USA
- CANE TOAD, Andrew Silke and David Clayton, Australia
- MIKE’S NEW CAR, Pixar Animation Studios, USA
- POLAR BEARS ‘GARY’S FALL’, Passion Pictures, UK

The winners will be awarded the Digital Hero trophy, hand sculpted by Dan Platt, at the ceremony, sponsored by HP, NVIDIA and Alias|Wavefront May 9 at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, running in conjunction with the 3D Festival 2003. The rest of the nominees are:

Feature Film VFX
- SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON, DreamWorks, USA
- SPIDER-MAN, Sony Pictures Imageworks, USA
- STUART LITTLE 2, Sony Pictures Imageworks, USA
- STAR WARS EPISODE II, Industrial Light & Magic, USA
- HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS: Chamber Sequence, Framestore CFC, UK
- LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, Weta Digital, New Zealand

Television VFX
- WILD WEATHER FOR BBC ONE, The Moving Picture Company, UK
- DINOTOPIA (mini-series), Framestore CFC, UK
- THE GIANT CLAW/LAND OF GIANTS, Framestore CFC, UK
- THE FUTURE IS WILD, 422 Ltd., UK

Commercials
- LEVI'S STAMPEDE, The Mill, UK
- NINTENDO, La Maison, France
- LEVI'S ODYSSEY, Framestore CFC, UK
- X-BOX MOSQUITO, Framestore CFC, UK
- CARL AND RAY: KUNG FU, Tippett Studio, USA
- MURPHY'S PEANUT, The Mill, UK

Music Videos
- NATURE IS ANCIENT (Bjork), Glassworks Post Productions Ltd., UK
- RESPIRE (Mickey 3D), André Bessy, Jerome Combe, Stéphane Hamache, Eric Prebende and Sylvain Tardiveau, France
- MISS LUCIFER (Primal Scream), The Moving Picture Company, UK
- COURAGE, for Cartoon Network, FilmTecknarna Animation AB, Sweden
- USE YUR IMAGINATION, Oddworld Inhabitants, USA

Independent Animations
- PIGLY, Philippe Tailliez & Sandrine Auvertin, France
- THIS WONDERFUL LIFE, Liam Kemp, UK
- ETERNAL GAZE, Sam Chen, USA
- CHAIN SMOKER, Ulf Lundgren, Sweden
- HENRY'S GARDEN, Moon Seun and Kevin Geiger, USA

Game Cinematics
- WARCRAFT III: REIGN OF CHAOS, Blizzard Entertainment, USA
- NEED FOR SPEED: HOT PURSUIT 2, Lost Boys Studios for Electronic Arts, Canada
- DEAD TO RIGHTS, Attitude Studio for Namco Hometek, France
- PRIMAL, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Cambridge, UK

Logos and Idents
- THE PRESENTATORS: PETS for Nickelodeon UK, Aardman, UK
- MORNING GLORY 1 for MTV Networks Nordic, FilmTecknarna Animation AB, Sweden
- TELETOON, Guru Animation Studio, Canada
- BIG BROTHER STINGS for E4, The Moving Picture Company, UK
- SANTA LIGHTS UP NEW YORK for Radio City Music Hall, Kleiser-Walczak, USA

Technological Innovation Special Award
- The Terrain Engine behind STAR WARS GALAXIES: AN EMPIRE DIVIDED, Sony Online Entertainment, USA
- Animanium: An Application For Character Animation with Flexible Inverse Kinematics, The University of Tokyo and Sega Corporation Mirari R&D, Japan
- RealFlow: Fluid Dynamics, Next Limit, Spain
- FaceGen: Statistical based face generation technology, Singular Inversions, USA
- Shave and Haircut: Dynamic hair simulation technology, Joe Alter, USA
- NPR1: Non-photorealistic rendering system, Reyes Infografica, Spain

Industrial Design
- Philips MC-i200 Flash product presentation, Annemieke Froger (Philips Design/Communications), Netherlands
- AudiPhone, Gabor Vaszkun, Hungary
- Z1010, Jeanna Kimbré (Sony Ericsson), Sweden
- Philips eXp 431 Flash product presentation, Annemieke Froger (Philips Design/Communications), Netherlands

Architectural Visualization (Animation)