Peter has said he isn’t terribly confident about his predictions here, largely because the minds of the VES voters are so foreign to us. I have a tendency to agree with this as they have made some off-the-wall selections in the past. Still, we will give it a go and while I have a bit more confidence in many of my predictions than does Peter, I’m not 100% sold on several of them.

VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY AWARDS

Best Visual Effects in an Effects-Driven Film

Captain America: The First Avenger
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Peter / RU:Wesley / RU:Tripp)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wesley / Tripp / RU:Peter)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Wesley Lovell: The buzz has been about Planet of the Apes‘ visual effects all year and a win by any other film will not only through conventional wisdom out the window, but it might signal a new course for this year’s potential Oscar winner. And if there’s a film to triumph, it’s the final entry in a vaunted and effects-heavy franchise.

Best Supporting Visual Effects

Anonymous
Hugo (Wesley / Tripp / RU:Peter)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (RU:Tripp)
Source Code
War Horse (RU:Wesley / Peter)

Wesley Lovell: When in doubt, I would choose the film that has an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. It happens so rarely, it’s hard to really say if there’s a pattern. However, Hereafter took this prize a few years ago in the only such instance I could find, which is good enough for me. Besides, Hugo has other nominations with this group and has some impressive visual effects work.

Best Visual Effects in an Animated Feature

The Adventures of Tintin (Wesley / Peter / Tripp)
Arthur Christmas (RU:Peter)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (RU:Wesley)
Puss in Boots
Rango (RU:Tripp)

Wesley Lovell: I would be a bit shocked if The Adventures of Tintin didn’t take this award. It’s the only motion capture film in the lot and it has a significant number of visual effects pieces. It’s also the most nominated of these films, which easily gives it the edge.

Best Animated Character in a Live Action Film

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – Ukrainian Ironbelly (RU:Wesley / RU:Peter)
Paul – Paul
Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Caesar (Wesley / Peter)
The Thing – Edvard/Adam

Wesley Lovell: So much has been made about Caesar that I’d be absolutely astonished if it didn’t win here. It’s worth noting that Andy Serkis’ characters have won each time they’ve been nominated (twice for The Lord of the Rings and once for King Kong. If Captain Archibald Haddock had been nominated in the next category (which he should have been over the less lifelike Tintin), he might have gone five for five.

Best Animated Character in an Animation Film

The Adventures of Tintin – Tintin (Peter)
Puss in Boots – Puss (RU:Wesley)
Rango – Rango (Wesley / RU:Peter)
Rio – Nigel

Wesley Lovell: The two most expressive characters on this list are my winner and runner up predictions. I think Rio will be seen as too slight and the work on Tintin really isn’t that impressive. But I’ll give the edge to the original character over the one we’ve seen many times before.

Best Created Environment in a Live Action Film

Anonymous – London (Peter / RU:Wesley)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – Hogwarts (Wesley)
Thor – Heimdall’s Observatory (RU:Peter)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – 155 Wacker Drive

Wesley Lovell: I hazard to guess Hogwarts because it’s a fairly impressive achievement, but mostly because they may want to recognize the final film in the franchise for its many wonderful years of visual effects magic and this would be an excellent way to do it. Of course, re-creating a very specific historical period in city form could deliver the prize to Anonymous.

Best Created Environment in an Animated Feature

The Adventures of Tintin – Bagghar (Peter)
The Adventures of Tintin – The Docks (RU:Wesley / RU:Peter)
The Adventures of Tintin – Pirate Battle (Wesley)
Puss in Boots – The Cloud World
Rango – Main Street Dirt

Wesley Lovell: The most impressive out of all of these is the awesome pirate battle in Tintin. The sequence on the docks is pretty impressive too, so it could go either way. Of course, splitting the vote between the two admirers could allow a third possibility to slip through, but I doubt they’ll let the excitement of either The Docks or the Pirate Battle lose to less adventurous fare.

Best Models

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – Hogwarts School Building (Wesley / RU:Peter)
Hugo – Train Crash (Peter / RU:Wesley)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Parking Garage
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Driller

Wesley Lovell: The model for Hogwarts is probably the most detailed out of all of these. That doesn’t mean another film can’t win and if it does, I expect the model train lovers in this guild to go for Hugo. Of course, they didn’t nominate Super 8 only great effects segment, the train crash, so perhaps they don’t love them that much?

Best Compositing

Captain America: The First Avenger
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (RU:Peter)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wesley / Peter)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (RU:Wesley)

Wesley Lovell: I don’t know enough about the specifics of this category to make much of a guess, but I’m going with the film most likely to win more than one award.

Best Virtual Cinematography in a Live Action Film

Hugo (Wesley / Peter)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (RU:Wesley / RU:Peter)
Thor
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Wesley Lovell: Hugo looks the best of all of the films, but will the Visual Effects Society be pulled in by the film like other guilds have been? I think so, but if not, look for Planet of the Apes to dominate with a mini-sweep.

Best Virtual Cinematography in an Animated Feature

The Adventures of Tintin (Wesley / Peter)
Arthur Christmas (RU:Peter)
Cars 2
Rango (RU:Wesley)

Wesley Lovell: Since the animation community seems to have turned its back on the motion capture community, I could see this manifesting in reverse with the Visual Effects Society whose members helped develop the technology currently being used. The Adventures of Tintin has the most alternating changes of environment, which should give it the edge of the less varied work in the other films.