Sci-fi adventure District 9 has earned Oscar nominations for its Vancouver-based writers and team of technical wizards, bolstering the city’s burgeoning reputation as a go-to hub for out-of-this-world movie imagery.
Vancouver’s Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell received a nod for best adapted screenplay, while local companies Image Engine and the Embassy are up for best visual effects for their rendering of massive prawn-like aliens and wild weaponry.
“Everybody chipped in, I’m happy for everybody,” Windsor, Ont.-native Bob Habros, hired by Embassy to supervise its team, said hours after the nominations were announced Tuesday.
“The cinematographer’s from Vancouver, the composer’s from Vancouver, the editor’s from Vancouver, most of the effects were done in Vancouver.
“It’s like such a cool project for the home team, you know?”
District 9 was viewed as the key beneficiary in the newly expanded best picture category, receiving a high-profile nod alongside Avatar and The Hurt Locker.
Blomkamp, who was born in South Africa, also directed District 9 but did not make the cut in that category.
In addition to Habros, Vancouverites Dan Kaufman and Peter Muyzers of Image Engine are among the technical experts nominated for best visual effects.
The companies collaborated with New Zealand’s Weta.
Embassy president Winston Helgason, whose company earned a visual effects nomination last year for Iron Man, said Vancouver is developing a reputation for slick work.
“Three or four years ago we were known pretty much as a television town,” said Helgason.
“At that point there were a few houses doing some film work but very little, there was very little high-end film work done in Vancouver.
“But then as the past few years have gone . . . Hollywood has seen that work actually can get done here.”
Although the main centres for visual effects continue to be Los Angeles followed by London, Helgason said Vancouver now rivals San Francisco as the next go-to place for eye-popping images.
In the visual effects category, the sci-fi fable is facing off against James Cameron’s alien epic, “Avatar,” and J.J. Abrams’ reworked “Star Trek.”
Habros gave the edge to Cameron’s blockbuster 3D marvel, which has dominated the box office since coming out in December.
“It’s probably his year, but what good company, that’s all I can say,” chuckled Habros, reached on a rainy Vancouver set where he was overseeing visual effects for the TV series “Fringe.”
Habros said the Oscar nod will bring more attention to Canada’s deep talent pool.
“It’s wonderful for us,” he said. “Lots of work lately has put us on the world stage, and this really reaffirms that.”
“District 9” outlines the fractured human-alien relations that emerge when extraterrestrial refugees are marooned in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Embassy’s nine-month job largely involved the creation of a climactic battle sequence that involved a larger-than-life mechanized suit of armour.
“Our stuff was really challenging to try and convey emotion from a robot, essentially,” said Helgason.
“It’s a guy inside the suit, we were trying to get his performance out so we did a lot of reference of the actor falling down, acting, stumbling along, stuff like that that we were trying to duplicate with the exo-suit, and then it’s also blending it into the environment so it looks completely natural.”
Habros said the Oscar attention will be a boon to the small but talented film houses in Vancouver.
“When you get in the running like this then you start having a lot of conversations with people, so I look forward to the future,” he said.
The Oscars will be handed out March 7.