Wētā FX Adds BAFTA Nomination To Awards Season Success

Wellington: Wētā FX’s awards season success continues, with the Wellington VFX house picking up a BAFTA nomination for Best Special Visual Effects for James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Announced earlier this morning (NZDT), the news comes less than a week after Wētā FX received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects for Avatar: Fire and Ash.

The BAFTA nomination also follows Wētā FX’s 16 Visual Effects Society Awards nominations, spanning more categories for the company than ever before.

“This is an incredibly strong year for visual effects and the work we do here, so everyone at Wētā FX should take pride in what we’ve achieved together,” says Head of VFX, Matt Aitken.

“We always say the nomination is the win, it’s what we aim for, so it is an immense honour to be nominated in so many categories and awards across our industry and globe this year,” he adds.

Wētā FX’s BAFTA nominees for Avatar: Fire and Ash, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett say, “We are deeply grateful to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for including Avatar: Fire and Ash on this year’s nominations. It is a real honour to be recognised by such a thoughtful and discerning body.”

“This has been an especially challenging and inspiring year, with so many outstanding films using visual effects in powerful, imaginative ways to help tell their stories. To be acknowledged among such remarkable work is truly humbling, and we are grateful to be part of a year that so strongly celebrates craft, collaboration, and storytelling,” they add.

Other films in the category include F1, Frankenstein, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Lost Bus.

The EE BAFTA Film Awards will take place at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday 22 February (GMT).

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Wētā FX nominees:

• Joe Letteri, Senior VFX Supervisor
• Eric Saindon, Senior VFX Supervisor, Wētā FX
• Daniel Barrett, Senior Animation Supervisor, Wētā FX

Quick facts:

• Wētā FX was responsible for 3,132 shots / 94% of the visual effects in Avatar: Fire and Ash. Only seven shots, totalling around 11 seconds of the film, do not contain visual effects.
• Wētā FX has worked with director James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment on Avatar projects for the last 20 years, establishing a creative shorthand and shared vocabulary that has enabled innovation and efficiencies to produce the highest quality of storytelling and visual spectacle.
• Avatar: Fire and Ash and Avatar: The Way of Water were filmed concurrently, meaning the third instalment builds on the technical advancements made in the second film, while levelling up with a significant increase in scale, complexity, and compute compared to Avatar: The Way of Water.
• Working in eight teams, two Senior VFX Supervisors, four VFX Supervisors, six VFX Sequence Supervisors, two Animation Supervisors, and more than 1,200 Wētā FX crew contributed to the film – a typical Wētā FX project would have one or two VFX and Animation Supervisors.

About Wētā FX

Wētā FX is the standard-bearer for creative innovation in visual effects and animation, attracting talent, partners, and clients who seek a collaborator that embraces and nurtures their artistic vision.

Their renowned proprietary pipeline provides artists with the tools and infrastructure they need to create their best work. Headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, with creative hubs in Vancouver and Melbourne, Wētā FX is home to some of the most ambitious artists, engineers, and executives you’re likely to meet.

Across three decades, their trailblazing work has so far earned seven visual effects Academy Awards®, 16 Academy Sci-Tech Awards and seven visual effects BAFTA Awards, in addition to 61 Visual Effects Society Awards awarded to them by their peers. Wētā FX is known for performance-driven animated creatures and characters such as Gollum, Kong, Neytiri, Caesar, and Pogo as well as for the universes they inhabit, including Middle-earth, Pandora and countless others.

www.wetafx.co.nz

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