Technicolor Strikes Oscar® Gold With The Jungle Book

• Adam Valdez, MPC VFX Supervisor, caps The Jungle Book winning streak with an Academy Award for “Best Visual Effects.”
• Technicolor and its family of VFX brands provided production and creative services to 19 of this year’s Oscar-nominated films.
• Technicolor’s Home Entertainment Services teams provided services for 33 nominated projects.

When the 89th Academy Awards were handed out at this year’s star-studded ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel in Hollywood, Adam Valdez, VFX Supervisor for Technicolor’s VFX studio MPC, took home an Oscar for outstanding achievements on The Jungle Book.

As lead VFX studio, MPC artists built a complex photo-real world; creating The Jungle Book’s stunning CG environments and bringing the film’s iconic animal characters to life. Mowgli’s wolf family, best friend Baloo the bear,  Bagheera the panther, Kaa the python, and the villainous tiger Shere Khan were built – bone, skin, hair, and whisker.   Fifty-four species of animals and 224 unique animals were created and new computer programs were made to better simulate muscles, skin, and fur.

The movie — with its single live actor in a totally digital environment — brought unprecedented challenges.  MPC met these challenges by marshaling its resources – including parent company Technicolor and their color pipeline and finishing artists – in new ways. MPC and Technicolor have a long history of building large-scale productions across many networks. Utilizing all the resources they’ve been building over the past several years for this project, they were able to put that technology at the service of the storyteller.  This film has been a living example of what the future of entertainment can be – and an accolade-winning juggernaut throughout the awards season.

In addition to new levels of photo-realism, the team working on The Jungle Book also set the standard for global virtual productions. With Technicolor providing color services on the film, the virtual production was fully integrated into Technicolor’s production and color finishing pipeline – out of which came the most extensive suite of HDR-deliverables in motion picture history.

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees for their outstanding achievements.

And check out the work of our Oscar-winning team on The Jungle Book!