As the Weta Digital VFX supervisors donned on their tuxedos for the 82nd Academy Awards at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre in LA today, the rest of us Weta Digital crew attended own red carpet event at a venue on the Wellington waterfront in New Zealand. Finally the moment had come for us to see true recognition, that the years of long hours & hard work had paid off as Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones made their way up to the podium to accept the Visual Effects Oscar for Avatar.

During my time at Weta, Avatar is the third film that I’ve worked on which has won the Visual Effects Oscar, the previous two films being King Kong & Lord of the Rings – Return of the King. I must say that of the three films, Avatar was certainly the most challenging film to work on, but I am certainly proud to have been a part of it. The hard work from all of the Weta Digital crew has certainly contributed to Avatar’s box office success, multiple Visual Effect Society Awards, a Special Visual Effects Bafta Award & now the Visual Effects Oscar.

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones receiving the Visual Effects Oscar for Avatar.

After two & a half years of working on Avatar, I finally got to see the film in full 3d tonight at the Weta Digital cinema. There was an awesome vibe about the cinema as the screening was for all of us at Weta that had worked so hard on the film.

From the opening shot to the final epic battle, I sat eyes glued on the screen immersing myself in the world of Pandora. It then became apparent to me that all of that hard work had paid off, & the film is something I am very proud to have been a part of.

I will be definitely going to go & see it again, probably a few times in fact. I’m also quite excited to to see the public’s reaction once it opens in the cinemas worldwide tomorrow.

Avatar, as far as I’m concerned it has definitely set a new bench mark for visual effects in feature films. Go & check it out for yourselves. Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://markg.com.au/2009/12/weta-digitals-avatar-screening/feed/ 0 http://markg.com.au/2009/12/avatar-premieres-in-london-early-reviews/ http://markg.com.au/2009/12/avatar-premieres-in-london-early-reviews/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:26:04 +0000 markg http://markg.com.au/blog/?p=49

Avatar premieres in London

Avatar, the film I’ve spent the past 2 or so years working on, has finally premiered in London. The media had to sign a form to agree not to publish a review or even express a professional opinion online or in print before its worldwide release, but it looks as though some of the media have either written their way around that or aren’t too afraid of the Fox legal department.

Judging from what I’ve read so far, it looks like all of the hard work has paid off…Here are some of the links of those reviews.

Variety review
The Guardian UK review
The Sun UK review
The Hollywood reporter review
Slashfilm.com first Avatar reactions