Weta wins visual effects BAFTA
23 Feb 2010
New Zealand's film industry is on a roll, this time at the British version of the Oscars - the BAFTAs (British Film & Television Awards).
Four Kiwi digital effect artists from Weta Digital in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, received the BAFTA for special visual effects for their work on the most successful film of all-time, Avatar.
Andrew Jones, Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum and Richard Baneham were in London on Monday (22.02.10) for the award ceremony, and sent news of their historic win to the rest of the Weta team via text message. The team said they are "pretty ecstatic" about the result.
Weta’s Kiwi triumph is the only win at the BAFTAs for Avatar, despite the movie being nominated in eight categories - including best film, and best director.
Best-selling movie
Avatar is the best-selling movie of all-time, grossing more than US$2 billion worldwide so far.
It has beat out previous box office record-holder Titanic, which had sat in the top spot since 1998. Both films are the brainchild of award-winning legendary Hollywood director James Cameron.
The movie cost US$200 million to make, and was written and directed by Cameron, who also spent a significant amount of time in Wellington shooting some of the movie’s scenes.
Avatar’s plot revolves around an ex-US marine who finds himself enlisted to be a fighter on a distant planet as an ‘avatar’ - a human mind in an alien body. While there, he falls in love with one of the local Na’vi girls, and joins their resistance fighters in a battle for survival.
Weta’s Academy Award honours
Weta Digital is also part of a team that won a scientific and technical Academy Award - the Sci-Tech Awards - in Los Angeles, two weeks before the actual 2010 Oscar ceremony.
Weta’s Dr Mark Sagar is a former medical researcher who started his career building computer simulations of human eyes for New Zealand’s highly-regarded Auckland University.
His team won the sci-tech for innovations in visual effects technology, which was used in both Avatar and another US film starring Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Another Weta Digital team member, Matt Aitken, has also been nominated for an Academy Award for the company’s visual effects work on Neil Blomkamp and Sir Peter Jackson’s science-fiction hit, District 9.
More information:
Weta technology inspires ‘Avatar’ world
From WOW to ‘Avatar’ for young Kiwi
Maori inspires ‘Avatar’ alien language
Oscar nominations recognise NZ film industry
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