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Last night was the 10th annual Visual Effects Society awards event, honoring dozens of visual effects people across the industry for their efforts of the past year.  Hosted by Patton Oswalt and with special appearances by Marton Scorsese, Antonio Banderas, Lou Ferrigno, and others, it was an impressive event.

More than a thousand attendees — filmmakers, producers, directors and members of the visual effects community– gathered to recognize the year’s best work and the artists who created it. Rango was the evening’s most honored project with four awards, including Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature Motion Picture, Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture, Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture, and Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in an Animated Feature Motion Picture. Hugo, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon all took home two awards in the Feature Motion Picture categories, while Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones each garnered a pair of awards in the Television categories.

Get the full list of award winners after the break.

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The next salvo in the ongoing battle to get VFX-workers the benefits and rights they deserve was fired by VES’s own Eric Roth in a lengthy letter to the industry, published in a new article on the Hollywood Reporter.  It makes the interesting statement that VFX workers don’t want to unionize, merely bring visibility to the problems.

The key issue is that the business is worldwide and jobs are instantly mobile, since the data files that VFX workers work with are easily transmitted between far-flung locales. That means that success in organizing Los Angeles companies would probably just drive even more work overseas. Add to that the multiplicity of companies in the business and the price pressure theyre under, and it becomes obvious why organizing the field will take a lot longer than a digital download.

via Visual Effects Society Slams Hollywood Over Working Conditions, Benefits, Credits – The Hollywood Reporter.

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First Jim Morris is selected as the SIGGRAPH2010 keynote speaker, and now he’s been named as the recipient of the prestigious 2010 VES Founder’s Award.  Currently working on John Carter of Mars, he’s got such successes as WALL-E, Toy Story 3, Ratatouille and more under Pixar, and such familar titles as Forrest Gump and Jurrasic Park all on his resume.

While Morris has been a long time leader in the field of visual effects at both ILM and Pixar, he was chosen as this year’s VES Founders Award recipient for service “above and beyond the call of duty” to the craft of visual effects and to the membership of VES. Jim Morris is the embodiment of this award, as he quite simply kick-started VES into reality during the 1990’s and has given of himself so freely to VES – both his time and unique expertise – ever since.

“Jim Morris was the founding Chair of the Visual Effects Society,” said current VES Chair, Jeffrey A. Okun.  “His consistent, tireless efforts have guided the VES to become ‘The Final Word on all things VFX’. His unique talent, insights and generosity of spirit are qualities we treasure,” added Okun.

via Computer Graphics World – JIM MORRIS TO RECEIVE THE VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY (VES) 2010 FOUNDERS AWARD.

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Last night was the 8th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards (VES) in Los Angeles, and CGSociety (With help from an active Twitter community) live-blogged the event.  Now they have a list of all the winners, and no surprise: Avatar scored big.  Some of the big awards:

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects In A Feature Motion Picture was won by the crew of 'Sherlock Holmes' (Dan Barrow, Jonathan Fawkner, David Vickery and Chas Jarrett) Go Chas! Thanks for the headsup!

Best Single VFX shot. In the field there was the 2012 plane escape, Neytiri drinking, The Knowing plane crash, Terminator Salvation escape, among others. Winner was Avatar for the 'Neytiri drinking' sequence. This was by Thelvin Cabezas, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran and most probably several others.

Final award of the night. Amy Smart presents Outstanding VFX in VFX Driven Feature Motion Picture and AVATAR gets the award. The Weta team led by Richard Baneham, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri and Eileen Moran.

Read the full list of winners on their site.

via CGSociety – VES Awards.

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