It's time for the Awesomest Oscar Pool Ballot In The History Of Oscar Pool Ballots. Every year I create a special ballot based on a typical Academy Awards printable ballot -- but on my ballot, each category has a different point value. The highest valued category is "Best Picture," while the mainstream films' categories are valued at two points. The non-mainstream categories (like the documentary and short film categories) are valued at one point. This way, in a tight race for the winner of the pool, the winner most likely would not be determined by the non-mainstream films (in ..read more

Watch on YouTube The beautiful and moving film "The Creator" (2023) is nominated for the Academy Award for visual effects, and I had the honor of hosting a panel with the nominated team as well as director Gareth Edwards. I was thrilled to be asked to moderate this panel, which included visual effects supervisors Jay Cooper,  Andrew Roberts and Ian Comley, as well as physical effects supervisor Neil Corbould. A general time limit was set for forty minutes, and I could ask any question I wanted - I got zero notes from the big shots on this one, so the questions you hear me asking are mine ..read more

It was my absolute pleasure to (finally!) be a guest on Jason Snell's The Incomparable podcast! We talk about one of my favorite movies of all time, "The Abyss" (1989). Jason, Annette Wierstra, Erika Ensign, John Siracusa and I talk about the epic James Cameron film, what the movie means to us, the differences between the theatrical cut and the Special Edition, and much more. THE INCOMPARABLE MOTHERSHIP #701 - KEEP PANTYHOSE ON - Host Jason Snell with Todd Vaziri, John Siracusa, Annette Wierstra, and Erika Ensign ..read more

Kris Tapley invited me to be a guest on his wonderful podcast 50 MPH, the oral history of the making of 1994's "Speed". The movie's visual effects bridge (hehe) the gap between the optical era (of miniatures and optical compositing) and the digital era. For the podcast, Kris interviewed over 100 people who helped make the movie, who reported on the movie, and some of us who are just big fans of the movie. Digital matte paintings, CGI renderings within miniature environments – you name it, we cover it. And that’s all barely scraping the surface. We also engage some of today’s esteemed VFX a ..read more

Folks who follow me on Twitter (currently known as X) are probably aware of my years-old, depressing, frequently updated and repetitive thread pointing out studios and filmmakers downplaying or outright lying about the use of digital visual effects on their projects. "We did it all for real!" is the message given in interviews, production notes and featurettes. The truth is these movies frequently contain hundreds or even thousands of digital visual effects shots, and sometimes the sequences they're directly referencing are made entirely out of digital effects.  The typical pattern is as ..read more

The gang behind my favorite movie podcast asked me to be a guest on the show, and it was scientifically impossible for me to be more giddy about it. Dan McCoy, Elliott Kalan and Stuart Wellington invited me on The Flop House (a podcast where they watch a bad movie and talk about it) to discuss "Waterworld" (1995), one of the quintessential big-budget "flops" of all-time. We talk about the negative hype surrounding the film's production, how it infected every single piece of press about the movie before its release, and the film itself - what we liked about it and what we didn't like. It was ..read more

Anthony Breznican from Vanity Fair asked me if I could take a peek at a shot from "The Exorcist" (1973), and get my thoughts on it on whether or not it was a visual effects shot. So it was a thrill to talk with him. Todd Vaziri, a veteran visual effects artist and historian who has written extensively about vintage filmmaking techniques, agreed with Gay’s assessment that the “demon” hidden in this shot is really just a trick of the light from her nightgown and movement. “I’m looking at your shot and I’m stepping through it, and I’m going to say that for the first part of the shot, you can s ..read more

watch on YouTube It finally happened. I was thrilled to be a guest on Corridor Crew’s “VFX Artists React” YouTube series. Part 1 of discussion is now online. I admire the Corridor team’s goal of promoting visual effects as a creative craft — just like any other craft in filmmaking — by elevating human faces associated with the amazing Hollywood visual effects that we all take for granted. My goal in being a guest on the show was in harmony with Corridor’s ethos. In the current media climate of systematic dehumanization of the digital visual effects community, I wanted to present st ..read more

I was on KPIX CBS San Francisco to talk about visual effects in the "Mission: Impossible" film series. I didn't work on "Dead Reckoning - Part One", but I did work on "III" and "Ghost Protocol". watch on YouTube Special effects in movies are an essential part of making a groundbreaking film. A specialist who has worked on some of the “Mission Impossible” movies, Todd Vaziri with Industrial Light and Magic, discusses how he conveys special effects, his favorite sequences on screen, how movies have evolved in this creative field, and more. (07/14/2023 ..read more

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