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Contender – Editor Steve Mirrione, August: Osage County
Based upon the three-hour play by Tracy Letts, August: Osage County brings together an ensemble of top actors to tell the story of strong-willed women brought by tragedy back to their Oklahoma home and the world of their drug-addicted, dysfunctional mother played by Meryl Streep. Editor Steve Mirrione admitted he is drawn to dialog-driven material. One of the challenges in converting the play into a film was retaining all the subtleties and great language, while paring down the story to a condensed movie length. The tightening process began in the screenwriting by re-writing scene-by-scene – then reading through and determining whether it felt like anything was missing – and continued in the editing, after the film was shot. […]

Luma Pictures Delivers Extensive VFX for Thor: The Dark World
Luma Pictures recently contributed extensive VFX work for Marvel‘s Thor: The Dark World. Working seamlessly between Santa Monica and Melbourne, Australia studios, the work encompassed multiple CG creatures, large-scale virtual set creation, digital doubles and substantial particle and fluid FX. […]

Contender – Visual Effects Supervisor Tim Webber, Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón spent four and a half years making his latest film, Gravity, which since its October release has become both a critical darling and a stand out at the box office. Like Avatar before it, Gravity developed new ways of filmmaking while it waited for technology to catch up. But this is no sci-fi romp through the universe. The director’s vision for the film, co-written with his son Jonás, meant venturing into space as we know it — not as we might imagine it — with the trademark long, fluid shots and palpable environments he brought to his Oscar-nominated Children of Men. […]

FOR-A’S 4K Extraction System to Make U.S. Debut
At the upcoming Sports Video Group Summit, FOR-A will demo its new ZE-ONE 4K extraction system for the first time in the U.S. The ZE-ONE was developed for use with FOR-A’s FT-ONE 4K super slow motion camera, which will also be on display at the summit, Dec. 16-17 at the New York Hilton. […]

Contender – Editor Joe Walker, 12 Years a Slave
When editor Joe Walker worked with director Steve McQueen on the film, Hunger, about Irish republican Bobby Sands leading prison inmates in a hunger strike, the company took a break from shooting for actor Michael Fassbender to lose weight. During that time they fine cut footage that had already been shot. When they resumed production, McQueen went into the final week of shooting with a clearer notion of what he needed to capture. This included not only pick-ups that would augment the story, but also eliminating scenes from the script that were now unnecessary to shoot. […]

Contender – Director J.C. Chandor, All is Lost
It’s hard to not put yourself in the place of Robert Redford’s character in J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost. Trying to imagine how you would behave in the situation of being lost at sea. I would have been cursing early and often. I also think I would be talking to myself the entire time. […]

DGA National Board Approves Tentative New Agreement
At a special meeting Saturday, the Directors Guild of America’s national board voted unanimously to approve and recommend a new three-year collective bargaining agreement. The tentative deal, announced Friday evening, will now be put to the membership for a vote. The term of the agreement is three years, covering July 1, 2014, when the current contract expires, through June 30, 2017. […]

Carnegie Mellon University to Open New Applied Sciences Program at Steiner Studios
Outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Carnegie Mellon University will open the fourth new applied sciences program in New York City as a part of the Applied Sciences NYC Competition. An agreement between the City, Carnegie Mellon University and Steiner Studios will create Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program, to be located at Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. […]

32TEN Studios Contributes Special Effects to Make A Wish Come True for Five-Year-Old BatKid
San Rafael, Calif.-based 32TEN Studios contributed several practical special effects for Make-A-Wish Foundation’s hugely successful “BatKid” event, held across the city of San Francisco on Nov. 15. […]