Vancouver’s VFX artists shine in this year’s Oscar race
More than 100 Vancouver Film School graduates worked on this year’s Oscar-nominated films
When the Oscar nominations were announced this week, Vancouver ’s film industry had plenty to celebrate with many local artists contributing to some of the biggest movies at this year’s award race.
The visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic was involved in all five films nominated for Best Visual Effects.
Much of that work came from ILM’s Vancouver studio, says the company’s VFX producer Rachel Reed. She says the team worked on three major projects, Sinners, Jurassic World Rebirth and Avatar: Fire and Ash.
“It’s incredible and unprecedented,” she said. “The team really had a heavy hand in these projects.”
Reed says working on visual effects for James Cameron’s third Avatar movie, which was previously handled by Wētā FX, was challenging and rewarding.
While the studio worked on the previous two installments, she says this was the first time they got to take on the blockbuster’s most technically fulfilling work like bringing the Na’vi characters and their facial performances to life.
“That is just kind of the Holy Grail of visual effects work. It's something that a lot of us have aspired to work on.”
She says the work involved close collaboration with Cameron and costume designer Deborah L. Scott, who made physical outfits for the characters, which were then digitally recreated by Reed and her team.
Reed, who moved to Vancouver from the U.S. Midwest about 15 years ago, said the city has become one of the world’s most sought-after hubs for visual effects and B.C.'s tax structure is part of the reason.
The province has increased tax incentives for both local and international film and TV projects to attract more major productions. This includes a 16 per cent Digital Animation, Visual Effects, and Post-Production (DAVE) tax credit incentive for qualified, B.C.-based labour costs tied to post-production work.
“It makes the city an attractive place for our clients all over the world,” the VFX producer added. “That’s led to just a wealth of incredibly talented visual effects artists and production teams here.”
World-class work
The city’s talent pipeline also comes from local film schools.
Vancouver Film School says more than 100 of its graduates worked on films that have been nominated for best visual effects at the 98th Academy Awards.
Jeremy Stewart, a VFX graduate from the school, worked as one of the many animators and artists on Jurassic World Rebirth.
“It’s an overwhelming feeling of pride…it takes a huge team of people to make these movies,” Stewart said. “You put in so much time and effort, and to see that work recognized internationally means a lot.”
In the early 2000s, when Stewart was living in Australia, he had worked as an animator for Happy Feet, which won an Oscar for the best animated feature.
“At the time, there were very few opportunities for VFX artists and animation in Vancouver,” he said.
Stewart said opportunities in Vancouver’s film industry have grown dramatically over the past two decades. But now, he says the city is producing world-class work and he credits schools like VFS for training artists.
Omari Newton, head of the acting department at VFS, says the school opened in the 1980s, just as the film industry began to take root in the city. As production came to Vancouver and more people started getting trained locally, he says a strong relationship developed between Vancouver artists and Hollywood.
“It is now a competitive advantage where there's just lots of gifted people from this town who are working on top-notch productions.”
The 98th Academy Awards take place Mar. 15 in Los Angeles.
With files from CBC's On The Coast