Steven Spielberg miniseries The Pacific was television’s biggest winner at this year’s VES Awards in Los Angeles.
Winning every award it was nominated for, the epic 10-part, $US150 million series – the most expensive television miniseries ever made on local shores – won in three categories at the ninth annual awards show, held Tuesday night LA-time:
- Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or a Special (John Sullivan, David Taritero, William Mesa, Marco Requay)
- Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Broadcast Program – The Battle of Iwo Jima (Marco Recuay, Morgan McDermott, Nick Lund-Ulrich)
- Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial – Peleliu landing (Jeremy Nelson, John P. Mesa, Dan Novy, Tyler Cote)
Executive produced by filmmaking legends Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the miniseries offers an unflinching look at the US Marine Corps’ campaign against the Japanese on islands in the Pacific during World War II.
VES Australia Section chairman Stefan Gillard said The Pacific‘s level of detail and depth created by the VFX team made it “historically accurate”.
Christopher Nolan’s brainy blockbuster Inception was another big winner on the night, netting four awards (from four nominations), including for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Motion Picture.
Extremely unlucky not to be nominated at this year’s Oscars for Best Director, Nolan, one of Hollywood’s biggest directors who is getting ready to do his third and final instalment in the Batman series: The Dark Knight Rises, was honoured with the inaugural VES Visionary Award.
Stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen (Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonauts) was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“He’s a living legend,” Gillard said.
Computer-animated fantasy 3D film How to Train Your Dragon also won in three categories, including Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Feature Motion Picture.
“I think Dragon really was a very-deserving winner from the perspective that the work itself really did add depth and development to the story while not detracting anything from the story,” Gillard said.
For the complete list of winners, click here.
Comprised of more than 2000 members in about 20 countries, the VES represents all visual effects practitioners from supervisors and artists, through to technology developers and studio executives.