Beowulf marks the first vfx-intensive performance capture hybrid, so Jerome Chen offers his perspective on entering it in the Oscar race.
While Beowulf has already qualified for Best Animated Feature consideration in the Oscar race, Sony Pictures Imageworks is also seeking recognition for Robert Zemeckis' performance capture hybrid in the visual effects category as well. VFXWorld recently discussed the ramifications with Visual Effects Supervisor Jerome Chen.
Bill Desowitz: Let's talk about qualifying Beowulf for the visual effects Oscar. What's the status?
Jerome Chen: We won't know until the committee meets in January and figures out the seven [for the bakeoff]. There's nothing in the rules that disqualifies it. And we've talked about this before: My job as visual effects supervisor on Beowulf is no different than on live-action movies -- I just did more. And I think of it as a visual effects movie. Otherwise, what have I been doing for the last three years in making visual effects for Beowulf? Here, just because the rest of the movie had to be visualized in the computer, there was much more support to do. Everything I'm doing now I learned on
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
