Oscar-nominated VFX: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes featurettes

Oscar-nominated VFX: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The latest in our series highlighting Oscar 2015's Best Visual Effects nominees: here we feature Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with a group of videos that illuminate the film's VFX processes.

We've featured the stunning visual effects of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (DOTPOTA) before, wondering aloud if the film had the most remarkable visual effects ever and, in a piece written by David Shapton, if technology means films keep getting better and better. Now that the film has garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects, we thought it was time to revisit the film's VFX achievements.

DOTPOTA, helmed by director Matt Reeves, is the second in the recent Planet of the Apes reboot and Weta Digital's second crack at creating digital simians. The Weta Digital team, responsible for breathtaking effects in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Iron Man films and more, are no strangers to Oscar, with five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects.

On DOTPOTA, the scale of the VFX was greatly increased from the first film, with more apes and more battles. From Weta, VFX Supervisors Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon and Erik Winquist used the company's own MASSIVE (Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment), bringing it from the stage to real world sets for the first time, along with Weta's usual post and VFX brilliance. (For more information on Weta's MASSIVE, have a look at our original DOTPOTA article). 

Check out below a featurette on 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' end-to-end ape creation, from motion capture below to silver screen. And don't miss our re-publish of the DOTPOTA featurette from Weta Digital on Page Two!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Weta Digital featurette