Special Visual Effects voting

The day started at around 8am, when I arrived at the Academy and checked in. There was a copious amount of people milling about, eating breakfast and guzzling down that flavorful wake up juice known as coffee. Overall I would guesstimate that there were approximately 250-400 people around. At first I thought that it was a great turnout for voting for the SVE category. I realized later that the Academy was also hosting a general voting section on the Comedy and Drama submissions. At around 9am there was a brief orientation, and the selected groups of reviewers were led away into our respective viewing rooms.

It was then that I realized that most of the 300 to 400 people present were not there to vote on in our category! It turns out that about 20 people showed up for our peer review of the 50+ shows that we had to review for the SVE final five.

As the twenty of us settled down into our comfy chairs for eight hours of viewing visual effects, I found it strange that there were only that many of us. I would have imagined that more visual effects peer group members would be exercising their right to vote on the top five nominees. Unfortunately that is not the case, much like real life voting! As I talked to our moderator at the event, he stated that the previous year was almost like this, with about 30-40 members showing up to vote.

Due to the nature of the voting, I cannot tell you which submissions we viewed. There were quite a few series submissions, which ran from about 9am to 12pm, with each submission ranging from a minute to ten. Occasionally the submissions came with a breakdown sheet, which listed the effects completed. However we did not see visual breakdowns on the screen, it was just completed shots as they aired. Overall it seemed a mystery to me why we didn't see before and after.

The content of the effects ranged from the extravagant to the invisible. Some were amazingly horrid, and some were exceptional. Each entry was rated from 1 to 5, 1 being worthy of a nomination, and 5 not being worthy. If a member present at the voting worked on a show, he was to recluse himself from voting on that entry. Since the Academy maintains strict standards for voting, each name would be randomly crosschecked with their vote. It seemed sort of a pseudo anonymous voting system, as I still had to sign an affidavit stating that I did not work on any of the shows viewed.

After a quick hour lunch, a build-your-own-sandwich affair, we ducked back into our cavelike room and started the afternoon session of the viewing, which consisted of the submissions for miniseries, movies of the week, and specials. Like the series panel in the morning, each submission usually came with a breakdown sheet or sheets. However there was an increase in maximum time allowed for each submission to have. Again, like the series, there were some amazing visuals as well as some lackluster spectacles.

Overall it was a very unique and interesting event, and one that I would like to go to next year. I'm not sure what happens after the nominees are announced, but I do hope that I will get a chance to vote for the actual winners from the top five! I'll keep you all informed.