66th Annual British Academy Film Awards Predictions

Tonight's the biggest night of the year for British film, and quite a prestigious one for film in general. From 9 PM (GMT) on BBC1, the 66th annual British Academy Film Awards will take place - hosted by Stephen Fry - as BAFTA honour the best in film of the last year. As such, it's time for A113Animation to offer up our predictions (if you're interested in our own picks, check out the nominations for the 3rd annual A113Animation Awards).

How it works with our predictions is that the films I think should win are in bold, but the films that I think probably will win are underlined. Check them out, starting with animation, of course, below. If no prediction is offered, it's because it's a category I'm clueless about/haven't seen any of the nominees for, and the nominees are listed purely for informative purposes. The results will be highlighted in gold as and when they occur.

Brave Wins Big at VES Awards

At yesterday's 11th annual Visual Effects Society Awards, Pixar's Brave got some much deserved awards recognition, taking four of the prestigious awards home from the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.

Watch: Behind the Magic Clip Shows How ILM Created The Hulk

The Avengers, everybody loves it. It's funny, it's exciting, it's epic, it's touching and it looks absolutely great; a key part of almost all of those criteria is The Hulk. As the clip we got a couple of weeks ago showed, ILM are the whizzes responsible for a lot of the fantastic visual effects present in Joss Whedon's superhero blockbuster, and they've rolled out a series of videos highlighting the pinnacle of that: Hulk.

The video, which is actually Part 2 (check out Part 1 here), shows how the geniuses over at ILM (who debuted in the feature animation world with 2011's Oscar winning Rango) married together Mark Ruffalo's charismatic mo-cap performance with sensitive and detailed animation. Check it out above.

I adored the visual effects and exquisite character animation in Life of Pi (check out my interview with the film's animation director here) but The Avengers is a major contender for the Best Visual Effects Oscar come 24th February.

Behind the Magic: The Look of 'Rango'

Via the official ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) YouTube channel, we get a behind the scenes look at absolutely gorgeous animation of Rango.

The video (above) shows some of the brilliant techniques and unparallelled detail that gave Rango some of the best animation of all time; the video shows the film's use of 'emotion capture' and how all the big names helped give the animation its life and vibrancy.

National Board of Review Recognises Rango

The National Board of Review, a collection of top film experts, have announced their annual awards, with Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed Hugo scooping the top prize of Best Film. However, in the animation category, the NBR recognised Nickelodeon Movies and ILM's Rango, starring Johnny Depp, which is a heavy favourite going into award season due to its wit and satire.

Rango really was a fun and clever film, whilst not in my opinion the best of the year, it's still a good choice that may very well be repeated by the Academy come February.