15 running

The first round of voting is over and the 2008 Visual Effects Oscar nominees to make the cut are…

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Australia

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Cloverfield

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Hancock

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The Incredible Hulk

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Iron Man

Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Quantum of Solace

The Spiderwick Chronicles

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I was surprised that ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ and ‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ was on their, since one was just release today and the other doesn’t come out for another 2 weeks…but there ya go. Looks like it just squeezed in to make the deadline for submission.

The next cut however will be made in early January, when the members of the VFX Branch of the Academy will whittle down the list above to seven. Then on Jan. 15th those same members will get to watch 15 minute reels of each film, and then nominate the top three for final Oscar voting.

All these different rounds of voting really makes me wanna watch Bruce Lee’s ‘Game of Death’ now. Which leaves me with the question, ‘Who do you think will be the top three nominees’. And more importantly, which one do you think will defeat Kareem Abdul Jabbar and take home the Oscar? Metaphorically speaking of course. Though come to think of it I would love to see Batman go toe to toe with “The Sky Hook”.

My vote would be for:

1) ‘The Dark Knight’ *Winner*

2) Iron Man

3) Cloverfield

But how about you guys? Leave your top 3 in the comments!

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Ok, well happy Friday everybody…I’m outta here. I have to work this weekend, but I also got a free day off from one of my supervisors today for the 2010 Mustang compositing I did. So I think that evens things out…right?

Have a great weekend!

best of michigan buisness

A couple months ago I told you all how Speedshape was listed as one of the ‘Best of Michigan Business’ in the Technology sector by Corp! Magazine. Well…today we got an award for it! Below is the official press release that can be found on our site, Speedshape.com. It details the award, the history of the company, and announces the opening of a East coast stuio is Boston, MA later this year. Congratulations Speedshape!

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READERS OF CORP! MAGAZINE NAME SPEEDSHAPE

BEST MICHIGAN BUSINESS IN TECHNOLOGY DIVISION

BIRMINGHAM, MICH. – SPEEDSHAPE, a leader in advanced 3D and CGI animation technology, announced today that the readers of Corp!, Michigan’s largest business magazine, named SPEEDSHAPE as “Best of Michigan Business” in the technology division.

“We are elated to be listed as one of Michigan’s best technology companies by the readers of Corp!,” said Mike Jackson, CEO of SPEEDSHAPE. “It’s our company mission to be a leader in the space we operate in and this acknowledgement only reinforces our goal to keep offering these superior services to our clients.”

The “Best of Michigan Business” winners will be celebrated at an award breakfast on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at the MSU Management Education Center in Troy, Mich. In addition, winning companies will be featured in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Corp! Magazine. More than 1,000 readers participated in a poll conducted by Corp! to rate the best Michigan businesses in a variety of categories including health care, banks, law firms, small and family business, real estate, technology, marketing, public relations and many more. For a complete list of winners, go to www.corpmagazine.com.

Debuting less than five years ago, SPEEDSHAPE has rapidly become a leader in advanced 3D and CGI animation and digital imagery. SPEEDSHAPE’S ability to cost-effectively aggregate complex CAD data from multiple sources and produce print, broadcast and interactive content with unprecedented precision captures the attention of engineers and marketers around the world. Images engineered by SPEEDSHAPE’S proprietary technology feature a robust degree of detail and accuracy going far beyond conventional photography, making it a highly coveted technology by automakers looking to securely recreate cars, engines and motion for manufacturing, advertising/marketing and training purposes.

More About SPEEDSHAPE

Launched in 2003, SPEEDSHAPE initially focused on new technologies and creative ways to manage CAD assets then grew as its expertise expanded. Today, SPEEDSHAPE offers design input and helps create rich and flexible content that can be used in a variety of media. The Venice Beach, Calif., and Birmingham, Mich., offices will soon be complimented by a Boston, Mass., office, opening in 2008. For more information, go to www.speedshape.com.

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and the winners are

Head on over to FXGuide for a list of all the 6th Annual VES Award winners! Sadly, “Dinosaurs 3D” got beat out by a film called “Seamonsters”. But it’s still amazing that D3D was nominated!

LINK: 6th Annual VES Award winners

LINK: VES Winners (pdf)

bmw hydrogen

My Sunday has been spent jail breaking my IPod to version 1.1.3. Which takes a lot freakin’ longer than I thought it would. So I’ve been bored. But though my boredom I found this really cool BMW spot that the Australian company Fuel FX did that just got nominated for a VES Award. Check it out, it’s really well done.

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I see a lot of cars day in and day out at work, so it’s really nice to see something pretty new and fresh.

Anyways, here’s a link to a write up I found on it…

LINK: BMW Hydrogen

Australian-based visual effects company FUEL VFX has been nominated for the VES Award for ‘Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial’ for BMW ‘Hydrogen’. The nomination is a great honour for FUEL who is a finalist alongside some of the world’s best known VFX houses: Digital Domain, MPC, Method Studios and Framestore.