After a bit of Disney disappointment with the DGA noms, I thought I'd highlight a category that looks to be very Disney friendly this year:
Visual Effects.
As I mentioned previously, the Visual Effects branch is one of several branches that whittles down contenders into a shortlist of finalists for nominations. Those ten shortlisted films participate in a visual effects "bake-off" presentation. The Visual Effects teams put together a 10 minute reel of footage highlighting the effects work, and a short Q&A follows. The effects supervisor gets to do about a 3 minute intro to the presentation. And in the past, we've seen major films skunked due to a weak presentation or poorly edited reel. And on the flipside, a film can get a surprise nomination with an outstanding presentation that surprised people (Deepwater Horizon is a great recent example. The presentation was engaging and exciting, and it highlighted that many of the fire effects were created with cgi. Something the effects artists in the room didnt even realize before being told, so obviously very impressive).
This year, the 10 finalists are: Ant-Man and the Wasp, Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Christopher Robin, First Man, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Mary Poppins Return, Ready Player One, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Welcome to Marwen.
If you're interested in a description of how the bakeoff screenings wenta few days ago, Will Mavity has an excellent rundown here:
https://www.nextbestpicture.com/latest/takeaways-from-the-2019-visual-effects-bake-off
Based on his and others reports, I think we have 3 guaranteed nominees: Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, and Ready Player One.
Avengers and RPO are both heavy on, and reliant on, their visual effects. Both gave great presentations that got positive reactions. Black Panther perhaps didn't have the most amazing presentation in the world, but offered surprising tidbits on how they created the CGI environments. And the film got applause upon starting the presentation. That's HUGE, and shows there is clear love for this film in the industry.
Likewise there are 3 movies that are at the bottom: Christopher Robin, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
A chunk of people thought an intermission/break was happening right before Jyrassic Wrold's presentation (the host announced they were at the halfway point) so many voters got up to use the bathroom and missed the whole thing. Very unfortunate. Christopher Robin sounds like the CGI was actually quite challenging to get right, but will ultimately be undermined by a poor presentation. And while the visual effects branch has warmed up more to the Marvel teams (at the beginning of the MCU, they were sort of "outsiders" in terms of the Hollywood VFX world), I still dont think they will let Marvel claim 3 of 5 nomination slots.
That leaves 4 films fighting for 2 open slots.
I'm going to go with Solo getting one, likely bumping First Man out of contention. First Man made a big deal about its practical effects, including an impressive LED screen setup to display space in real time outside the cockpit windows. BUT then Solo went after it, and also used that LED screen tech for its flight sequences (coupled with an emotional anecdote about Donald Glover reacting to experiencing the "hyperspace" effect while shooting). Not only did it steal First Man's thunder there, but it also surprised voters with the amount of practical creatures created and featured a great mix of cgi and practical effects blended throughout.
The last slot is likely Mary Poppins Returns vs. Welcome to Marwen. Mary Poppins probably has the least amount of effects out of all the contenders, but it has a lot of goodwill. People clearly responded to the nostalgia aspect of the film and ate up the 2D musical sequence, and the challenges it created to make it all look right. But the artists behind Marwen highlighted that they actually created a whole new digital lens camera system, which allowed them to pull CGI creations in and out of focus. The way shifting actual camera lenses can make objects/actors in the foreground gain or lose focus in a scene. Talk about catnip to a room full of effects artists! They also had the benefit of going last, so itll stick in voters minds.
Which one gets in? Well one enormous shift in voting procedures this year is that the branch will now vote during the regular Oscar nomination voting period (which started yesterday). In every year past, the branch filled out a ballot directly after the presentations finished and voted in the room. The change this year is HUGE. Because they now had 2 days to sit with their decision instead of voting off of immediate reactions (or longer. No one is required to vote on the very first day Oscar voting opens, but many do). Had they voted in the room, I think Marwen would definitely get in. It was a very impressive presentation. However, the film received nearly unanimous negative reviews. Will the extra time allow members to think "you know what, the effects were great but I just dont like that movie". That would seem to favor Mary Poppins, a movie more generally well liked. But it's hard to know. Those last 2 slots are basically a toss up.
If I had to rank them now:
1. Avengers: Infinity War
2. Ready Player One
3. Black Panther
4. Solo
5. Mary Poppins Returns
6. Welcome to Marwen
7. First Man
8. Ant-Man and the Wasp
9. Christopher Robin
10. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom