Monday, January 9th, 2012 Posted by Jim Thacker

Tintin battles Harry Potter for this year’s VES Awards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op3w_ICK4us
The Adventures of Tintin heads the shortlist for this year’s VES Awards, with six nominations. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon each get five, and Rango gets four.

Tintin, Rango, Harry Potter and Optimus Prime will duke it out with a supporting cast of gangsters and dinosaurs for this year’s Visual Effects Society Awards, the shortlist for which was announced today.

The main VFX movie category consists entirely of existing franchises, with Captain America: The First Avenger, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon all in the running.

The selection mirrors the long list for this year’s Academy Award, announced last week.

In contrast, new stories dominate the animated feature shortlist, with The Adventures of Tintin, Rango and Arthur Christmas going up against Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2.

Broadcast and commercials
Emmy Award-winning crime series Boardwalk Empire leads the broadcast categories with four nominations; followed by Game of Thrones with three and Stephen Spielberg-produced dino drama Terra Nova with two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NE_4y-bQn8
Mikros Image’s excellent The Bear receives a nomination for Best Animated Character in a commercial.

It’s interesting to note how the nominations for the short-form categories, which cover both commercials and videogame cinematics, differ from fxguide’s recent end-of-year round-up, though.

While Mikros Image’s The Bear – fxguide’s overall favourite – receives a VES nomination for Outstanding Animated Character, only five of its top ten make the Visual Effects Society line-up.

But we wouldn’t disagree strongly with either list: proof, if any were needed, of just how much work comes out of the world’s smaller VFX studios each year.

The 2012 Visual Effects Society Award winners will be announced on 7 February.

Read the full list of nominees for this year’s VES Awards