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OSCAR PICKS aire, and impressive editing and sound work. The film was impressively edited by Howard's longtime collaborators Dan Hanley and Mike Hill, who won the Oscar for Apollo 13, and sound was "crucial" to the film, "as you hear those cars before you ever see them," notes Howard. "And Danny Hambrook, our sound designer, recorded lots of the historic cars and built up all these tracks, and in post helped design the engine sounds, and that made a world of difference. A lot of the F1 fans can tell the engines apart, so I wanted it to be right." Over the course of a long and storied film, TV and stage career that began in the '80s, Ralph Fiennes has established himself as an actor's actor, a consummate professional equally at home playing gravitas and drama — The English Patient (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nom), The Constant Gardner, The Reader, Quiz Show — campy adventure (The Avengers) — romantic comedy (Maid in Manhattan) — action (Skyfall) — and even an animated musical (The Prince of Egypt). "Like any actor, I like variety," he notes dryly. But Fiennes, who has always excelled above all at playing morally bankrupt villains, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Star Trek Into Darkness are two films with notable VFX. 18 bore him a son). The project, written by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady), reunites its star with The English Patient's Kristin Scott Thomas (she plays Mrs. Ternan) and was another labor of love for Fiennes. "Dickens was a very complicated man, which I like, and while trying to direct and act at the same time isn't easy, portraying his exhaustive energy and love of organizing amateur dramatics and so on came in very useful, as it paralleled what I had to do," says Fiennes, who shot the film largely on location in England and posted it in London. He notes that shooting period pieces "isn't easy, even if you find the original Dickens locations, as so much has been changed."To help remove any traces of 21st Century technology and signage, Fiennes teamed with Molinare VFX and One Of Us. And Mandela; Long Walk To Freedom deser ves Oscar attention, with its inspired take on the late 95-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner's momentous life, directed with both lyrical grace and urgent ferocity by Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl). The small-budget indie, shot entirely in South Africa, was a labor of love for all involved. effects shots, with over 1,100 done at Sony Imageworks (and another 400 done by Luma Pictures, Digiscope, Evil Eye, Method, Reliance, Third Floor and With A Twist). The senior visual effects supervisor was Scott Stokdyk, who worked with Oz director Sam Raimi on all three Spider-Man films (he won the Oscar for Spider-Man 2), and the Imageworks team included digital effects supervisors Francisco DeJesus and Peter Nofz, animation supervisor Troy Saliba, 3D visual effects supervisor Scott Willman and senior visual effects producer Diana Ibanez. The goal was to create a highlystylized environment for the land of Oz and bring to life the CG characters that accompany Oz (James Franco) on his journey, including Finley the monkey and China Girl, as well as the characters and creatures that surprise them along the way. These included thousands of flying Baboons, with three unique hero Baboons, digital crowds in the land of Oz, including countryside and city crowds, and CG creatures, include attacking snapdragons, horses, various insects, butterflies, birds, flying fish, wooden horses, lions, squirrels, and river fairies. In addition, the team created many CG environments, including the Kansas Circus both small-time mobsters (In Bruges) and larger-than-life, indelible incarnations of evil (Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter franchise), is now making a name for himself as a director. He's always been attracted to darker material and morally conflicted, tragic characters, tackling the title role in his 2010 passion project, an updated version of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus," which also marked his directorial debut. His second film as director, The Invisible Woman, also deals with themes of conflict and loss in its story of a young actress, Ellen Ternan (Felicity Jones), who in the 1880s met the famous — and famously energetic and controlling — Charles Dickens (Fiennes) and became his secret mistress (she reportedly VISUAL EFFECTS & POST WORKFLOW Visual effects have come a very long way in the past decade or two, and Oscar has usually voted like any fanboy and gone for the truly spectacular in this category. And the past year certainly saw plenty of spectacular VFX in such global blockbusters — and a few box office disappointments — as Iron Man 3, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Fast & Furious 6, Man of Steel, Oz The Great and Powerful, Pacific Rim, Oblivion, Thor: The Dark World, The Lone Ranger, Star Trek Into Darkness, Gravity, World War Z, The Great Gatsby and The Wolverine. Oz The Great and Powerful was another huge global hit and boasted over 1,500 visual environment, panoramics of the land of Oz, huge water environments with lots of closeup water interaction, the Emerald City's main gates, boulevard, central square, back gate, back alley, bell tower, palace, dais, vaulted corridor, Throne Room, Room of Resplendence, balcony and bridge digital sets, and huge aerials of the city. Also created were the Yellow Brick Road countryside environments, China Town — a town made of porcelain plates, teacups and teapots, the Haunted Forest, the graveyard and ruins, and Glinda's castle and village. Featured FX animation included magic effects for the witches, Glinda's magic bubbles, Theodora's fire tornado, the hot air balloon destruction during the Oz hologram show, and various fireballs, explosions and Post • January 2014 www.postmagazine.com