The List of 7, 82nd Academy Awards

It's Bake-Off time! The visual effects branch of the Academy have narrowed their 'list of 15' films to the seven films that will be participating in the bake-off for the race for the 82nd Academy Awards:

• “Avatar"
• "District 9"
• "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
• "Star Trek"
• "Terminator Salvation"
• "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"
• "2012"
  

The Executive Committee have narrowed the List of 15 to these seven films when they met last week. The Bake-Off, which features 15 minute reels from each film and a short Q & A from each film's visual effects supervior, will take place on Thursday, January 21. Immediately after viewing the reels, the entire visual effects branch gets to vote on the final three nominees for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. As always, the entire Academy then votes for the winner of the award.

Industrial Light & Magic contributed to five out of the seven films ("Avatar," "Harry Potter," "Star Trek," "Terminator" and "Transformers 2"), and I personally worked on three of those films. Weta Digital brought us "Avatar" and "District 9," (along with several other houses) while a flurry of facilities contributed to "2012" and "Harry Potter."

My predictions for the List of 7 was almost spot-on; I only missed one film (I wrongly predicted "G.I. Joe" would grab a spot, rather than "Terminator"). Thankfully, I made up for my dismal predictions from last year.

My always-not-to-be-trusted predictions for the three final nominees? "Avatar," "Star Trek" and "District 9."