Last night, the Visual Effects Society held their annual awards.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes took home "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture", which should give it a big boost in the Oscar race.  Usually, if a film is nominated for Best Picture, then it has the edge in the VFX category.  However, none of this year's VFX nominees are Best Picture nominees, so hopefully Planet of the Apes will get the awards love it deserves (and missed out on in 2011 when Hugo beat out Rise of the Planet of the Apes).

While DOTPOTA made headway in the Oscar race, the big winner at the VES Awards was Big Hero 6.  Disney's animated film racked up five awards including "Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture".  While Big Hero 6 is certainly gorgeous, I'm going to need someone to sit me down and explain why it's more impressive than The LEGO Movie, where every animated element exists in the real world.

Here's the press release:

Visual Effects Society Announces Winners of the 13th Annual VES Awards

Big Hero 6 is the Big Hero with 5 Awards; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Tops the Feature Film Category; Games of Thrones and SSE Lead in Broadcast and Commercial Wins

Zoe Saldana, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Clark Gregg and Patton Oswalt Join 

Overflow Crowd of VFX Artists, Innovators and Industry VIPs

Los Angeles (February 4, 2015) – Today, the Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry’s global professional honorary society, 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 1000 guests gathered at the Beverly Hilton to celebrate VFX talent in 23 awards categories.  Big Hero 6 was the big winner of the evening garnering five awards.  The teams from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (feature film), Games 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.  Awards 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.

Winners of the 13th Annual VES Awards are as follows:

dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-charge-poster

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Joe Letteri

Ryan Stafford

Matt Kutcher

Dan Lemmon

Hannah Bianchini

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Birdman

Ara Khanikian

Ivy Agregan

Jake Braver

Isabelle Langlois

Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6

Don Hall

Chris Williams

Roy Conli

Zach Parrish

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

Game of Thrones; The Children

Joe Bauer

Steve Kullback

Stuart Brisdon

Thomas Schelesny

Sven Martin

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

American Horror Story; Freak Show; Edward Mordrake, Part 2

                Jason Piccioni

Jason Spratt

Mike Kirylo

Justin Ball

Eric Roberts

call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-gameplay
Image via Activision

Outstanding Real-Time Visuals in a Video Game

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Yi-chao Sandy Lin-Chiang

Joseph Salud

Demetrius Leal

Dave Blizard

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial

SSE; Maya     

Neil Davies

Alex Hammond

Jorge Montiel

Beth Vander

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project

Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquee de Remy

Tony Apodaca

Marianne McLean

Gilles Martin

Edwin Chang

Mark Mine

Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Caesar

Paul Story

Eteuati Tema

Andrea Merlo

Emiliano Padovani

big-hero-6-baymax-hiro-hug
Image via Disney

Outstanding  Performance of an Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6; Baymax

Colin Eckart

John Kahwaty

Zach Parrish

Zack Petroc

Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

SSE; Maya

Jorge Montiel

Alex Hammond

Daniel Kmet

Philippe Moine

Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Interstellar; Tesseract

Tom Bracht

Graham Page

Thomas Døhlen

Kirsty Clark

Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6; Into the Portal

Ralf Habel

David Hutchins

Michael Kaschalk

Olun Riley

Outstanding Created Environment in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

Game of Thrones; Braavos Establisher

Rene Borst

Christian Zilliken

Jan Burda

Steffen Metzner

x-men-days-of-future-past-hugh-jackman-michael-fassbender-james-mcavoy-evan-peters
Image via 20th Century Fox

Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal/Live Action Motion Media Project

X-Men: Days of Future Past; Kitchen Scene

Austin Bonang

Casey Schatz

Dennis Jones

Newton Thomas Sigel

Outstanding Models in any Motion Media Project

Big Hero 6; City of San Fransokyo

Brett Achorn

Minh Duong

Scott Watanabe

Larry Wu

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

X-Men: Days of Future Past; Quicksilver Pentagon Kitchen

Adam Paschke

Premamurti Paetsch

Sam Hancock

Timmy Lundin

Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6

Henrik Falt

David Hutchins

Michael Kaschalk

John Kosnik

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Dominique Vidal

Isabelle Perin-Leduc

Sandrine Lurde

Alexandre Lerouge

dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-toby-kebbell
Image via 20th Century Fox

Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Christoph Salzmann

Florian Schroeder

Quentin Hema

Simone Riginelli

Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

Game of Thrones; The Watchers on the Wall

Dan Breckwoldt

Martin Furman

Sophie Marfleet

Eric Andrusyszyn

Outstanding Compositing in a in a Photoreal/Live Action Commercial

SSE

Neil Davies

Leonardo Costa

Gianluca DiMarco

 

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project

Wrapped

Roman Kaelin

Falko Paeper

Florian Wittmann

Paolo Tamburrino

About the Visual Effects Society

The Visual Effects Society is a professional honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects and to upholding the highest standards and procedures for the visual effects profession. It is the entertainment industry's only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators and studio executives.  VES’ almost 3,000 members in 30+ countries worldwide contribute to all areas of entertainment – film, television, commercials, animation, music videos, games and new media.   To learn more about the VES, visit www.visualeffectssociety.com.