‘Avatar,’ ‘Pinocchio,’ ‘The Rings Of Power’ Top 2023 VES Awards

Avatar: The Way of Water dominated the 2023 VES Awards last night, taking home nine awards from its record-breaking 14 nominations.

In addition to scooping the headline prize of outstanding visual effects in a photoreal feature, Avatar took prizes for character, effects simulations, compositing and lighting, practical effects, model, created environment, and virtual cinematography, as well as the newly-created emerging technology award.

Among the animation categories, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was the big winner, taking three prizes including outstanding visual effects, animated character (Pinocchio), and created environment (the inside of the stomach of a sea monster). Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was the evening’s only other animated feature winner, scooping the award for effects simulations.

From the episodic categories, it was Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power that came away with the most awards, scoring a hat trick of prizes including vfx, effects simulations, and created environment. Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots was the only animated series to score a VES award last night, with its episode “Night of the Mini Dead” taking the honor for compositing and lighting.

The full list of 2023 VES Award winners is below:

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE

Avatar: The Way of Water

Richard Baneham

Walter Garcia

Joe Letteri

Eric Saindon

JD Schwalm

VISUAL EFFECTS IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Aaron Weintraub

Jeffrey Schaper

Cameron Carson

Emma Gorbey

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A COMMERCIAL

Frito-Lay; “Push It”

Tom Raynor

Sophie Harrison

Ben Cronin

Martino Madeddu

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL EPISODE

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; “Udûn”

Jason Smith

Ron Ames

Nigel Sumner

Tom Proctor

Dean Clarke

SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE

Thirteen Lives

Jason Billington

Thomas Horton

Denis Baudin

Michael Harrison

Brian Cox

SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL EPISODE

Five Days at Memorial; “Day Two”

Eric Durst

Danny McNair

Matt Whelan

Goran Pavles

John MacGillivray

ANIMATED CHARACTER IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; Pinocchio

Oliver Beale

Richard Pickersgill

Brian Leif Hansen

Kim Slate

ANIMATED CHARACTER IN AN EPISODE, COMMERCIAL OR REAL-TIME PROJECT

The Umbrella Academy; Pogo

Aidan Martin

Hannah Dockerty

Olivier Beierlein

Miae Kang

ANIMATED CHARACTER IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE

Avatar: The Way of Water; Kiri

Anneka Fris

Rebecca Louise Leybourne

Guillaume Francois

Jung Rock Hwang

EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE

Avatar: The Way of Water; Water Simulations

Johnathan Nixon

David Moraton

Nicolas James Illingworth

David Caeiro Cebrian

EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Derek Cheung

Michael Losure

Kiem Ching Ong

Jinguang Huang

EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN AN EPISODE, COMMERCIAL, OR REAL-TIME PROJECT

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; “Udûn”; Water and Magma

Rick Hankins

Aron Bonar

Branko Grujcic

Laurent Kermel

COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN A FEATURE

Avatar: The Way of Water; Water Integration

Sam Cole

Francois Sugny

Florian Schroeder

Jean Matthews

COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN A COMMERCIAL

Ladbrokes; “Rocky”

Greg Spencer

Theajo Dharan

Georgina Ford

Jonathan Westley

COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN AN EPISODE

Love, Death + Robots; “Night of the Mini Dead”

Tim Emeis

José Maximiano

Renaud Tissandié

Nacere Guerouaf

SPECIAL (PRACTICAL) EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL PROJECT

Avatar: The Way of Water; Current Machine and Wave Pool

JD Schwalm

Richard Schwalm

Nick Rand

Robert Spurlock

MODEL IN A PHOTOREAL OR ANIMATED PROJECT

Avatar: The Way of Water; The Sea Dragon

Sam Sharplin

Stephan Skorepa

Ian Baker

Guillaume Francois

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AWARD

Avatar: The Way of Water; Water Toolset

Alexey Dmitrievich Stomakhin

Steve Lesser

Sven Joel Wretborn

Douglas McHale

VIRTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY IN A CG PROJECT

Avatar: The Way of Water

Richard Baneham

Dan Cox

Eric Reynolds

A.J Briones

CREATED ENVIRONMENT IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE

Avatar: The Way of Water; The Reef

Jessica Cowley

Joe W. Churchill

Justin Stockton

Alex Nowotny

CREATED ENVIRONMENT IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; In the Stomach of a Sea Monster

Warren Lawtey

Anjum Sakharkar

Javier Gonzalez Alonso

Quinn Carvalho

CREATED ENVIRONMENT IN AN EPISODE, COMMERCIAL, OR REAL-TIME PROJECT

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; “Adar”; Númenor City

Dan Wheaton

Nico Delbecq

Dan Letarte

Julien Gauthier

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A REAL-TIME PROJECT

The Last of Us Part I

Erick Pangilinan

Evan Wells

Eben Cook

Mary Jane Whiting

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A SPECIAL VENUE PROJECT

ABBA: Voyage

Ben Morris

Edward Randolph

Stephen Aplin

Ian Comley

VISUAL EFFECTS IN A STUDENT PROJECT

A Calling. From the Desert. To the Sea

Mario Bertsch

Max Pollmann

Lukas Löffler

Till Sander-Titgemeyer