Voting at Fotokem

Ah.. A long and eventful day.. Today I did my part, and attend the VES Judging event, held at Fotokem in Burbank, CA. It was pretty packed, but that was primarily because the lobby of Fotokem was pretty small for close to 75 people. I met some fellow DDers there, as well as some folks from ILM and the Bay area! Unlike previous years attending events like these, I actually was able to converse with my peers whom I've never met before. It was a great experience. On to the event!

I arrived right on the dot, at 8am. The parking lot was getting pretty full and I could see many people milling around the entrance, checking in. In all, I estimate about 75 VES members were present, with a group of volunteers. I met several of the volunteers from before, at the ImageMetrics event in Santa Monica last month. As we checked in we were given a number, from one to six, which signified which screening room we would be in. There were able 12 members per room. At this moment, the categories we would be judging were not revealed to us. Only after we sat in the comfy theatre seats were we given the outline for the day and the categories we would be voting on. The lucky categories that so enamored us were; Category 8: Outstanding Single Visual Effect of the Year, Category 11: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue, and Category 21: Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Series, Commercial, or Music Video. The voting went in the reverse order, from 21 to 8. The other five screening rooms had from between 3 to 5 categories to judge.

Unfortunately I won't go into the nominees, as that wouldn't be fair. The three ultimate nominees that are to be voted on by the VES populace will be announced early next week. Suffice to say, many of high profile movies of last year were definitely shown! The selections were shown on either HD or DVD, depending on the format that they choose to submit. A couple entries were in HD, and it was quite apparent that the visual effects were much more noticable. I highly recommend delivering on HD in the future if your show or film is at that resolution!

I don't recall if Category 11 was a category last year, but it seemed out of place at times. Special venues, are, special. They're IMAX films, or ride films, or theme park extravaganzas. Viewing them from a DVD seems to just do injustice to the work that the artists put in. Hopefully this can be remedied in the future, but it's extremely tough to look at work that isn't meant to be viewed at a mere 480i resolution.

If you're in the LA area next weekend (January 13th), make sure you come to the VES Show & Tell, held at the Skirball Center. The top nominees from the categories we voted on today will show up and tell us about the work they accomplished! After you see the nominees, you'll definitely want to figure out how they did things. I'll be attending next weekends event as well.

Do you have questions about this event? Feel free to ask in the comments below!