The List of 10, 85th Academy Awards

It's Bake-Off time! The visual effects branch of the Academy have revealed the short list of films that will be participating in the bake-off for the race for the 85th Academy Awards:

The Amazing Spider-Man

Cloud Atlas


The Dark Knight Rises


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey


John Carter


Life of Pi


Marvel’s The Avengers


Prometheus


Skyfall


Snow White and the Huntsman

The 40-person executive committee of the visual effects branch of the Academy (led by industry veteran Craig Barron) came up with this list of ten films that will present at the bake-off.  Each film will present a 10 minute reel of finished work, along with a short introduction and brief Q&A.  All visual effects branch members are invited to attend and vote for the films that will earn a nomination.  Since the 83rd Academy Awards, there will be five nominees for the Oscar.

This year, the bake-off will take place on January 3, 2013, much earlier than previous years.  The nominations will be announced the next week in all categories (on January 10, 2013), and the awards ceremony will take place on February 24, 2013.

Congratulations go out to the visual effects teams of all of these films on their hard work.

We will run the numbers through The VFX Predictinator, our unified formula for predicting the winner of the visual effects Oscar (which has been 100% accurate in the four years since its invention, based on analysis of 20 years of winners and nominees) after the full nominations are announced.