Escape Studios Head of 3D Mark Spevick Joins Board of VES

Mark Spevick

We're congratulating our Head of 3D Mark Spevick, who has just joined the board of the the Visual Effects Society (VES), the global organisation that "represents the full breadth of VFX practitioners with over 3,000 professional members in 33 countries worldwide".

VES supports our industry with, among other things, the VES Awards, the deadline for which is fast approaching. If you're a student and you have a great VFX shot you'd like to submit, this could be a great chance to get noticed and start your career. The winner gets a paid flight to Beverly Hills and receives a VES statue.

To find out how to enter the student category of the VES awards, follow this link.  And to see the official site, click here. 

The deadline to submit your work is November 30th. Below is  checklist from the VES society to make sure you get everything right.

Video Format Reminder
Be Sure to Upload and Review Your Video. The VES has learned that Avid has changed the name of the Quicktime codec we specify in the Awards Rules & Procedures for uploading viewing materials from “DNxHD 36” to “DNxHD LB 8-bit”. This change is noted in the text in all categories of the R&Ps under the heading "What Should Be Uploaded." The name change should not affect the format of your uploads.

Check Back a Day After You Upload Your Video
As soon as you upload your video, we will immediately start transcoding it for the Online View & Vote. Please check back after 24 hours to check your transcoded videos, and either approve or reject them on the site with particular attention to colorspace and black levels. The cutoff date for review is Monday, December 5, 2016.

Upload Your Entries Soon
Submissions will not be permitted after Wednesday, November 30, 2016. Make sure your uploads adhere to the Rec709 specification (i.e. values falling between 16 and 235 for 8-bit data) and that it is encoded in the DNxHD LB 8-bit format inside a QuickTime wrapper. Improperly encoded video will look incorrect during the View and Vote and Nomination Events. Click here for more details, please refer to the "What Should Be Uploaded?" section for your category.

Only One Entry Per Category
The VES Awards rules allow only a single entry per project in Categories 1 through 8. All parties wishing to enter in these categories must coordinate their submission through the overall VFX Supervisor or Producer in order to prevent conflicts and to allow for fair representation amongst the nominees.

Check the Spelling of the Names for Your VES Awards Submission
Please double check the spelling of the names of your nominees and pay special attention to punctuation and accent marks. These names, as entered, are used for the awards.

Students with Professional Experience
Students who have professional experience must use a petition in order to enter a submission as a student along with all the other requirements as outlined in the Rules & Procedures.