The Walt Disney Company Leads 24th Annual VES Awards, Propelled by 'Avatar: Fire and Ash'

20th Century Studios' Avatar: Fire and Ash led a multitude of top-tier wins at the 24th Annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards in Los Angeles,

What’s Happening:

• On Wednesday, February 25, the global VFX community gathered at The Beverly Hilton to recognize the year's best work across 25 categories in film, television, and emerging media.
• Avatar: Fire and Ash dominated the evening with a total of seven awards, including the highest honor of the night: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature.
• The Disney+ series Andor captured two critical episodic awards.
• Walt Disney Animation Studios earned a victory for Zootopia 2, winning Outstanding Environment in an Animated Feature for its highly detailed Marsh Market.
• Wētā Workshop co-founder Sir Richard Taylor, whose studio has been instrumental in Disney's Avatar franchise, was honored with the VES Visionary Award.

Breakdown of The Walt Disney Company Wins

Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century Studios / Lightstorm Entertainment)

• Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature: Richard Baneham, Peter Litvack, Eric Saindon, Nicky Muir, Steve Ingram
• Outstanding Character in a Photoreal Feature: Varang: Leader of the Ash Clan (Stephen Clee, Stuart Adcock, Keven Norris, Joseph Kim)
• Outstanding Environment in a Photoreal Feature: Bridgehead Industrial City (Gianluca Pizzaia, Steve Bevins, Dziga Kaiser, Zsolt Máté)
• Outstanding CG Cinematography: Steve Deane, A.J. Briones, Zachary Brake, Andrew Moffett
• Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project: The Windtraders’ Gondola (Michael Smale, Sam Sharplin, Joe W. Churchill, Jacqi Dillon)
• Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature: Simulating Pandora (Nicholas James Illingworth, Sarah C. Farmer, James Robinson, Ryan Bowden)
• Emerging Technology Award: Kora Fire Toolset (Alexey Dmitrievich Stomakhin, John Edholm, Murali Ramachari, Aleksandr Isakov)

Andor (Lucasfilm)

• Outstanding Environment in an Episodic, Commercial, Game Cinematic, or Real-Time Project: "Welcome to the Rebellion;" The Senate District (John O’Connell, Falk Boje, Hasan Ilhan, Kevin George)
• Outstanding Special (Practical) Effects in a Photoreal Project: "Who Are You?" (Luke Murphy, Dean Ford, Jody Eltham, Darrell Guyon)

Zootopia 2 (Walt Disney Animation Studios)

• Outstanding Environment in an Animated Feature: Marsh Market (Limei Z. Hshieh, Alexander Nicholas Whang, Joshua Fry, Ryan DeYoung)

The Architecture of Immersion: Evaluating Disney's VFX Strategy

• The technical achievements recognized at the 24th VES Awards show the variety of approaches in The Walt Disney Company's VFX pipelines.
• On one end of the spectrum, Avatar: Fire and Ash represents the absolute bleeding edge of computational simulation and pure CG generation. The Kora Fire Toolset accurately simulates volumetric fire and ash interactions within a fully digital ecosystem.
• Lucasfilm's Andor integrates legacy techniques with physical, on-set mechanics grounded in real-world physics, enhanced rather than replaced by digital compositing.

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