‘Avatar’ win marks 4th Oscar for effects guru Joe Letteri

For senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri, partner at VFX house Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, Avatar marked his fourth trip to the Academy Awards stage in the past decade.

Having won for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and King Kong, Letteri still was excited as he accepted the visual effects Oscar.

“Avatar is a film about learning to see the world in new ways, and for that extraordinary inspiration I have to thank our director, James Cameron,” he said.

Over the course of the four films, Letteri has proved that few can match his skill at turning inspiration and vision into onscreen reality. He pioneered the use of performance capture and related techniques to create believable CG characters. His tragic Gollum in Lord of the Rings, performed by Andy Serkis, was a milestone in animated characters, and Letteri followed up that accomplishment with the remarkable Kong in King Kong also acted by Serkis.

Humans remain the greatest challenge, and many CG practitioners have jokingly referred to their struggle to cross the disconnect know as the “Uncanny Valley.” That is when a CGI or motion-capture character looks essentially realistic but not quite human, leaving viewers with characters that appear disconcertingly creepy. 

By Carolyn Giardina