By Kate Rodger
Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie got the nod in this year's Oscar nominations - but what happened to Tintin?
Was it a deliberate snub or just an oversight that saw it left out.
See the full list of Oscar nominations
The Adventures of Tintin was not just nominated at the Golden Globes last week - it won.
But there was little love for Steven Spielberg and Sir Peter Jackson from the Oscars academy today, Tintin's glaring omission from the best animated feature and visual affects categories touted as one of the biggest snubs of the awards.
“I think that was a really big oversight... Not to recognise those achievements,” says Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor for Weta Digital.
Mr Letteri's Weta team was responsible for the Tintin motion-capture animation, and he has a theory about why they missed out.
“The visual effects branch didn't recognise it, because they thought it was animation, and the animation branch didn't recognise it because it was using performance capture and visual effects techniques.”
Weta Digital was not entirely shut out of the Oscars, the perennial Oscar winner got the nod for their work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
“That's pretty good news to wake up to,” says Mr Letteri.
Another Wellingtonian who got a rather nice wake-up call this morning was Bret McKenzie.
He is nominated for his song ‘Man or Muppet’, just one of several he wrote as musical director for the Muppets movie.
Another of his songs ‘Life’s a Happy Song’ has already won a Critics Choice Award.
McKenzie's only competition for the golden man is a song from animated movie Rio, one of the stars of which is fellow Conchord Jermaine Clement.
The frontrunners though are two films which worship at the altar of the movies.
Martin Scorsese's magical Hugo is his first foray into 3D, garnering the most nominations at 11 nods. And in a throwback to the silent movies of old, French film The Artist nips at his heels with 10 nominations.
With this announcement today the campaigning begins in earnest for the nominees in the lead up to the February 26 awards in LA.
After the Anne Hathaway, James Franco hosting train wreck last year, it is with a sigh of relief Billy Crystal is welcomed back as host this year.
3 News
source: newshub archive
