By Carolyn Giardina

LOS ANGELES --

Three commercials created for the U.K. market will compete for the 2005 Visual Effects Society (VES) Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial. They are “Network” for British Telecom, “Transformer” for Citroen, and “Tree” for Johnnie Walker.

    Notable is the nomination of “Tree, ” which positions its effects creator, Framestore-CFC in London and New York, for the possibility of an impressive sweep–a third straight win in the commercial category at this third annual VES Awards.

“Tree” features a photoreal CG tree lifting its roots and moving from a forest to a city locale. Daniel Kleinman (then of now-closed Large and now working under the London-based Kleinman Productions banner) directed “Tree” for Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), London. Last year Framestore won the VES commercial award for another Johnnie Walker spot, “Fish”, also through BBH and directed by Kleinman, and the first year for its Xbox ‘Mosquito’ spot, also with Kleinman and BBH.

The nominated artists for the Johnnie Walker ad are lead compositors William Bartlett and Murray Butler; and lead CG animators Jake Mengers and Andy Boyd. The challenge, according to Framestore’s New York-based managing director Jon Collins, was to try to make the tree look realistic, even though it couldn’t possibly be walking–in other words, make an unrealistic event believable.

This year, Framestore actually earned five VES nominations in total. It addition to “Tree,” VES nominated Framestore’s work on Dragons for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or a Special; Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets for Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture (for Buckbeak the Hippogriff); and Troy for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture (as part of a joint submission with London’s The Moving Picture Company). Framestore already holds six VES awards, for the aforementioned commercials as well as long-form work from previous years.

“Tree” will compete this year with commercial nominee “Network,” produced for the U.K. via London agency St. Luke’s and directed by Joseph Kahn via London’s Exposure Films, marking the first VES Award nomination for Santa Monica-based Cafeé FX/The Syndicate. Team members on the ballot are Syndicate’s lead CG artist/digital supervisor David Lombardi, producer Richard Mann and Flame artist Kevin Prendiville, along with visual effects supervisor Eric Durst, who came on board with the production company.

“Network” is an image piece that features business taking place via people flying through the air over a city, symbolizing BT’s networking services. Prendiville explained that most of the spot is CG, with the primary exception being close-ups of people. Lombardi said the choreography, which had to be very precise and fluid, was the biggest challenge. He added that this included matching live camera moves with CG in a continual shot.

The third commercial nod went to “Transformer” from Vancouver, B.C.’s The Embassy Visual Effects, which promotes the Citroen C4 automobile out of Euro RSCG London. The mostly CG spot begins with a shot of the automobile, which transforms itself into a robot (all parts of the robot being car parts, such as doors and windows) and performs a dance–based on a motion capture performance–before returning to the form of the car. The ad was directed and edited by Neill Blomkamp of Toronto-based Spy Films, and features visual effects from The Embassy Visual Effects, Vancouver, B.C. The nominees for the spot are Blomkamp, Embassy founder Winston Helgason, visual effects supervisor/CG artist Trevor Cawood and animator Simon Van de Lagemaat.

The Embassy earned a second VES nomination for outstanding visual effects in a music video, for Never’s “The Dream.” This marks another individual nomination for Cawood and Van de Lagemaat; also nominated for this clip are compositors Stephen Pepper and Jon Anastasiades.

In that same category, visual effects supervisor/lead compositor Bert Yukich of Kroma, Los Angeles, earned his first VES nomination for Britney Spears’ “Toxic” directed by aforementioned Kahn. The effects-laden video included the making of a CG Britney for use in stunt sequences.

These clips will compete with “What Happens Tomorrow” for Duran Duran, marking the first VES nomination for Santa Monica-based Steele Inc.. The nominated team is supervising visual effects artist Jerry Steele, senior executive producer Jo Steele, visual effects supervisor and executive producer Brian Adler, and visual effects artist Monique Eissing. The clip was directed by Smith n’ Borin of Los Angeles-based Merge@Crossroards.

Adler explained, “The band was only available the day of the main performance shoot. Ultimately, we decided to dress the band in all black suits, patterned with hundreds of small rhinestones. Shot against green screen, compositors keyed the performers in order to maintain their overall silhouette. Artists tracked the rhinestones, which reflected light from almost every direction, created star effects for them, and replicated them to fill in more gaps in space.”

In all, the VES will recognize visual effects work in 19 categories of film, television, commercial, music videos and games. A panel of over 60 visual effects professionals chose the nominees.

The awards process will include a new event on Jan. 22: The Big Reveal 2005, during which nominees demonstrate the secrets behind the visual effects “magic” that earned each artist a place among this year’s VES Awards nominees. “This process helps voters better understand the intricacies of each entry. Technology is evolving so quickly that even visual effects professionals themselves are fooled regularly by what is an effect and what is not,” explains VES Awards Chair Jeff Okun. This event, being held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, is open to all VES members and to the public.

Final viewing and voting will take place online via the VES Web site, from Jan.31 to February 12.

    The VES Award winners will be announced at the Third Annual VES Awards gala on Feb. 16 at the Hollywood Palladium. Academy Award winning director Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express, Forrest Gump) will receive the VES Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him by Academy Award winner Tom Hanks.

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