For the 15th consecutive year, every Oscar-winning movie for Best Visual Effects was created with the help of filmmaking tools from Autodesk, Inc.
Press Release from Autodesk
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., March 10, 2010 - For the 15th consecutive year, every Oscar-winning movie for Best Visual Effects was created with the help of filmmaking tools from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK). Autodesk Digital entertainment Creation software was also used to help shape this year's nominees and winners for Achievement in Cinematography, Best Animated Feature Film and Best Animated Short Film.
"This year's Academy Award honorees have developed groundbreaking ways to turn their visions into reality," said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. "We're honored that many artists integrated our interactive and immersive tools into their production pipelines and Autodesk software helped raise the digital filmmaking bar. Autodesk also congratulates the original developers of Autodesk Lustre software for winning a Scientific and Technical Achievement Award."
Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for Lustre
The original developers of Autodesk Lustre software were honored with an Academy Award. On February 20, 2010, Mark Jaszberenyi, Gyula Priskin, and Tamas Perlaki received the award for design and development of Lustre software for digital color grading for film and television. This marks the fifth time that a technology development from Autodesk is recognized and honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Autodesk production-proven technology helped shape Oscar-winning and Oscarnominated films in the following categories:
Achievement in Visual Effects
"Avatar" - Academy Award Winner (also Best Cinematography)
James Cameron, together with Lightstorm Entertainment, pioneered new methods of virtual moviemaking to create "Avatar." "When James Cameron conceived the idea for 'Avatar' 15 years ago, the technology wasn't available. Over the past few years, with the help of Autodesk software, we were able to bring [Cameron's] vision to life," said Nolan Murtha, digital effects supervisor at Lightstorm.
The filmmakers were able create an innovative, groundbreaking film with the help of Autodesk Digital Entertainment Creation tools: the actors' performances were applied onto pre-built digital characters and viewed in real time by both the director and actors with Autodesk MotionBuilder software; Autodesk Maya software was used to help create the digital characters and environments and Autodesk Mudbox software was used for digital sculpting.
"District 9" - Academy Award Nominee
District 9, a sci-fi drama populated by computer-generated (CG) characters and digital environments, proved that impressive effects can be achieved on a modest budget. Image Engine visual effects company used Maya and MotionBuilder to help create over 300 visual effects scenes as well as complex, believable alien creatures.
"Star Trek" - Academy Award Nominee
Artists at Industrial, Light & Magic (ILM) used a combination of Maya and Autodesk Inferno software, which is a part of ILM's proprietary SABRE
high-speed compositing system, to help create amazing visual effects and characters while remaining true to the original TV series. "The speed of Maya, its ability to iterate so easily and its seamless tie into our proprietary Zeno software platform make for a toolset that doesn't inhibit creativity and was, in fact, a key to the success of the project," said ILM Animation Director Paul Kavanagh.
Achievement in Cinematography
* "Avatar" - Academy Award Winner
* "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" - Academy Award Nominee - Cinesite used Maya to help create dramatic visual effects and CG characters. ILM used Maya and Inferno to help create fluid simulations and crowd duplication.
* "Inglourious Basterds" - Academy Award Nominee - CIS Hollywood relied on Maya to help create visual effects sequences.
* "The Hurt Locker" - Academy Award Nominee - Company 3 and Encore Hollywood used Autodesk Flame software and Autodesk Smoke software to help create over 70 visual effects shots on this winner of multiple awards.
Best Animated Feature Film
* "Coraline" - Academy Award Nominee - LAIKA, Inc. used Maya to help create a model of the Coraline puppet head and its surrounding pieces, and to help create the fluid facial expressions.
* The Secret of Kells" - Academy Award Nominee - Walking the Dog used Autodesk 3ds Max software to create 3D scenes for the movie and Autodesk Combustion software for compositing.
Best Animated Short Film
* "Logorama" - Academy Award Winner - Mikros Image animation studio used Maya for 3D effects and rigging.
* "French Roast" - Academy Award Nominee - Fabrice O. Joubert used Maya for modeling and cloth simulation and Autodesk Softimage software for rigging, hair simulation, animation, texturing and rendering.
* "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" - Academy Award Nominee - Brown Bag Films used 3ds Max and Smoke to help create Granny's computer-generated world.
About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc., is a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software to help customers experience their ideas digitally before they are built. Fortune 100 companies as well as the last 15 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects use Autodesk software tools to design, visualize and simulate their ideas to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation for competitive advantage. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.
