The Revenant Bear is killing it, winning outstanding animated performance last night at the Visual Effects Society Awards over The Avengers’ Hulk, Chappie, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s Maz. Industrial Light and Magic animators Matt Shumway, Gaelle Morand, Karin Cooper and Leandro Estebecorena took home the trophy.
The Bear attack also won outstanding compositing in a photoreal feature for Industrial Light and Magic compositors Donny Rausch, Alan Travis, Charles Lai and TC Harrison over teams from Mad Max: Fury Road, San Andreas, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Tomorrowland.
The Revenant picked up an overall award for outstanding supporting visual effects in a photoreal feature for its VFX team — Industrial Light and Magic’s Rich McBride, Ivy Agregan, Jason Smith, Nicolas Chevallier and Cameron Waldbauer, special effects supervisor at Objects Inc. and his 40-person team in Vancouver.
Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) wearing the bear’s pelt.
Helmed by Oscar-winning Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu and lensed by Oscar-winning Birdman/Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the Alberta-and-BC-filmed feature is the true-ish story of an 1820s fur trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) bent on revenge after a mercenary (Tom Hardy) kilsl his son and leaves him for dead following a bear attack.
Several BC crew (now sporting Revenant hoodies) worked on the production which filmed mainly in Alberta — on and off for a year from September 2014 to September 2015 — with a small shoot in the Squamish Valley in late 2014 marred by torrential rains. The Revenant’s famous bear attack was done without any real bears in a small area of first growth timber on the Squamish River known as the “Derringer Forest’ with Leonardo DiCaprio on a harness yanked around and smashing into prop rubber trees so he wouldn’t be hurt. And local stuntman Glenn Ennis playing the bear, added in post production.
Le Revenant stunt department rehearsed for months in Vancouver before going to the Squamish set.
Glenn Ennis.
Related: Rodeo FX’s VFX for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman.
The Revenant has grossed almost $300 million worldwide in theatres so far.
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