(Pictured: Fences Director & star, Denzel Washington with DoP & NFTS alumna, Charlotte Bruus Christensen)
At least 30 NFTS alumni worked on this year’s Oscar nominated films including Fences and Hacksaw Ridge, which are up for Best Picture. Charlotte Bruus Christensen is DoP on Fences and Evan Jolly is Additional Music Composer on Hacksaw Ridge.
Composing graduate, Dario Marianelli, who previously won an Oscar for Atonement, composed the music for Kubo and the Two Strings, which is nominated for Best Animated Feature. Travis Knight, director of Kubo and the Two Strings recently delivered a masterclass to NFTS students accompanied by Arianne Sutner, LAIKA Head of Production and a selection of puppets from the movie – read more here.
Both Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Hail Caesar! are hot contenders for Best Production Design. Alumni working on Fantastic Beasts include Director, David Yates; Stand-by Art Director Huw Arthur; Sound Design Editor, Robert Malone; 2nd Unit Sound Mixer, Ivor Talbot; Pre-Vis/Generalist TD Zach du Toit and Digital Compositor David Sheldon. Hail Caesar! benefitted from legendary DoP, Roger Deakins who has been nominated for an Oscar no fewer than 13 times and is an NFTS alumnus; and Art Director, Cara Brower Leon.
Nominated films in the Best Visual Effects category include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Jungle Book. Rogue One credits the following alumni: Generalist Lead for ILM John Seru; Visual Effects Producer, Ben Lock; Art Directors, Stephen Swain & Steve Lawrence; Junior Draughtsman, Olivia Muggleton; Boom Operator, Michael Lee Taylor and First Assistant Editor, Tom Harrison-Read. The Jungle Book includes credits for: Visual Effects Production Manager, Carlos Ciudad; Lead Compositor MPC, Chris Gooch; Stereo Compositor MPC, Graham Dorey; Roto/Prep Artist, Andrew Scattergood; Digital Artist, Helen Brownell; Digital Compositor, Adam Arnot and Stereo Compositor MPC, Victor Almela.
NFTS Sound graduate, Adrian Rhodes is credited as Sound Editor/ Mixer on Pear Cider and Cigarettes, which is nominated for Best Animated Short.
Meryl Streep is nominated for Best Actress for Florence Foster Jenkins, which was written by NFTS alumnus, Nicholas Martin and credits Editor, Valerio Bonelli; Concept Artist, Elo Soode and Sound Assistant, Michael Lee Taylor.
Good luck to everyone involved; we’ll be on the edge of our seats!
