Weta Digital has been nominated for two Visual Effects Society awards for thier work on the movie The Water Horse - Legend of the Deep.

Weta brought to life the fabled Loch Ness Monster, nicknamed Crusoe, picking up nominations for Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture and Compositing in a Motion Picture.

The film was made in Queenstown and Wellington.Weta Digital has been nominated for two Visual Effects Society awards for thier work on the movie The Water Horse - Legend of the Deep.

Weta brought to life the fabled Loch Ness Monster, nicknamed Crusoe, picking up nominations for Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture and Compositing in a Motion Picture.

The film was made in Queenstown and Wellington.Other nominees in the animated character category include the Sandman from Spider-Man 3, Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Pip from Enchanted, Optimus Prime from Transformers and The Infected Leader from I Am Legend.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep is a fantasy film directed by Jay Russell. The screenplay, written by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, is an adaption of Dick King-Smith's children's novel The Water Horse.

The film stars Alex Etel as a young boy who discovers a mysterious egg and cares for what hatches of it: a 'water horse' that becomes the fabled Scottish Loch Ness Monster.

Weta Digital did the visual effects for the movie, including the computer-generated imagery of the monster (named Crusoe).

You can see a video blog about the special effects on YouTube, introduced by one of the film's producers Charlie Lyons who says "this is really about how do you make a creature and then bring it alive, and these people do it like no one else in the world."

You can see more of their work on a YouTube trailer for the film.

Walden Media, in collaboration with Beacon Pictures and Revolution Studios produced the film. Weta has worked with Walden Media on the productions of The Chronicles of Narnia films.

The Visual Effects Society (VES) 6th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognises outstanding visual effects in over a dozen categories of film, television, commercials and video games. The VES Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles on
February 10.

Weta Digital has been nominated in the following categories:

ANIMATED CHARACTER IN A LIVE ACTION MOTION PICTURE

"Spider-Man 3" - Sandman - Chris Yang, Bernd Anger, Dominick Cecere, Remington Scott
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" - Crusoe - Richard Frances- Moore, Martin Hill, Marco Revelant, Daniel Barrett
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" - Davy Jones - Hal Hickel, Marc Chu, Jakub Pistecky, Maia Kayser
"Enchanted" - Pip - Tom Gibbons, James W. Brown, David Richard Nelson, John Koester
"Transformers" - Optimus Prime - Rick O'connor , Doug Sutton, Keiji Yamaguchi, Jeff White
"I Am Legend" - The Infected Leader - David Schaub, Marco Marenghi, Josh Beveridge

COMPOSITING IN A MOTION PICTURE

"Transformers" - Pat Tubach , Beth D'amato , Todd Vaziri , Mike Conte
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" - Death Of Beckett - Lou Pecora, Joel Behrens, Ted Andre, Kevin Lingenfelser
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" - Eddie Pasquarello , Katrin Klaiber, Jen Howard, Shawn Hillier
"I Am Legend" - Seaport Evacuation - Darren Lurie, John Sasaki, Rita Kunzler, Fish Essenfeld
"The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" - Crusoe - Areito Echevarria, Gareth Dinneen, Norman Cates, Caterina Schiffers
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" - Hall of Prophecy and Comp Shots - Jolene Mccaffrey, Jelena Stojanovic, Victor Wade, Adam Pashke

Image: 'The Water Horse' © 2007 Sony Pictures Digital Inc. All Rights Reserved

24/01/08