George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic once again dominated the visual effects Oscar category, nabbing two out of three noms for "Dragonheart" and "Twister."
If either picture wins it would be the 15th time that an ILM-involved movie takes a statuette.
"Independence Day's" special effects story is more interesting: In order to accomplish the film's digital effects, the producers orchestrated a group of smaller post-production companies that may not otherwise have had such a large a role in a blockbuster studio picture.
Among the companies involved in putting together effects for "Day" were Pacific Ocean Post; VisionArt, a division of Santa Monica Studios; Digiscope; the Post Group; OCS/Freeze Frame; and Kolbeco Prods.
"We're thrilled that the Academy has recognized all the hard work by so many that went into the picture," said Bill Fay, exec producer. He and "Day" writer Dean Devlin and helmer Roland Emmerich are in pre-production on "Godzilla" for TriStar.
Visual effects mavens point out that this year's Oscar choice will be between the biggest movie with visual effects ("Day") and the movies with the most sophisticated effects. "Dragonheart" is most notable for its photo-real digitally created leading actor --- Draco, the Sean Connery-voiced dragon --- who has 20 minutes of screen time. ILM achieved significant advances in facial animation on the project.
On "Twister," ILM was able to master the difficult problem of using computer graphics to create the illusion of nature's random forces. ILM made advances in a particle animation system on the project.
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