The Visual Effects Society, the industry’s global professional honorary society, on Feb. 4 held the 13th annual VES Awards, the prestigious yearly celebration that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in film, animation, television, commercials, video games and special venues.
Comedian Patton Oswalt served as host to the more than 1,000 guests gathered at the Beverly Hilton to celebrate VFX talent in 23 awards categories. Disney’s “Big Hero 6” was the big winner of the evening, garnering five awards.
The team of Brett Achorn, Minh Duong, Scott Watanabe and Larry Wu won the award for Outstanding Models in Any Motion Media Project for creating San Fransokyo, a mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo, the setting for “Big Hero 6.”
The movie also won for Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture; Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture (for the robot Baymax); Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture; and Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature Motion Picture.
The teams from “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (feature film), “Game of Thrones” (broadcast) and SSE (commercial) led the wins in their respective categories, taking home three awards each.
Zoe Saldana made a crowd-pleasing presentation to her “Star Trek: Into Darkness” director, award-winning writer-director-producer J.J. Abrams, recipient of the VES Visionary Award. Presenters included Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Clark Gregg, “How to Train Your Dragon 2” director Dean DeBlois, Alyssa Sutherland, Jamie Chung, Karine Vanasse and Scott Adsit.
For a complete list of winners, visit www.visualeffectssociety.com.