Transformers: Dark of the Moon won two out of the five categories it was nominated in for the 10th annual Visual Effects Society Awards. Transformers: The Ride also won its category of Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project. The awards are given out to honor achievement in visual effects across multiple areas besides movies. DOTM won for Outstanding Created Environment (155 Wacker Drive) and Outstanding Models (Driller) in a movie.The categories Transformers 3 lost in where Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture to Hugo, and Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture to Captain America. In the last 9 years, 7 times the winner of the VES' Outstanding Visual Effects Award went on to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. This includes the first Transformers in 2008. This year the win indicates that DOTM’s competition is Apes. The full list of winners can be found here.
Having watched Captain America and Apes myself, I am actually a bit proud that TF3 has good competition. Those two movies did indeed have excellent visual effects when you see how much work went into them to make it look real. Kudos to all the VFX crews on all these movies. You make my day, not just on TF3, but all sci-fi/fantasy movies in general.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know which "created environment" TF3 won this award for? It says 155 Wacker Drive, but which one? There's literally 4 addresses, North, South, East and West Wacker. Plus I read Scott Farrar's interview where he mentions that address in connection with the "tilting-building", but that was on East Illinois Street, not Wacker. I didn't see the awards show, so maybe they had a movie clip with this... anyone see it?
ReplyDeleteCORRECTION: the first Transformers in 2008 did not win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, I remember it vividly because it lost to The Golden Compass and I almost went on a rampage.
ReplyDelete@PixelRally I'm pretty sure 155 Wacker Drive refers to the skyscraper that Driller took down because I read about in another place and questioned it as well so I researched it and came up with that.
Cool... thanks Anon. I haven't seen the special features in the new Blu-Ray set yet, so maybe they explained this already, but here's what I think they did: the CG building they "built" in the empty lot beside 160 East Illinois — the one that gets fallen onto — was the stunt-double for the actual glass/steel office building at 155 N. Wacker Drive. Then they digitally altered that neighbor building on Illinois Street to look like the real neighbor building, 123 N. Wacker, across the street from 155. The street that runs between them is Randolph, which they "destroyed" during filming... in the movie, Sam & Carly run through the carnage with the soldiers and are briefly shown entering the lobby at 155 N. Wacker. I failed to make the connection, that it was the building that gets toppled... There is a camera angle that looks down the side of the building, when the driller first attacks it, and the neighbor building 123 and the street carnage below are visible right there. Well done ILM!
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