Apple's Shake 'wins' Oscar


Apple has announced that its Shake compositing software played a critical role in helping The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King win an Oscar in the "Best Visual Effects" category. The actual award was taken home by Weta Digital, which created the digital visualizations and composites used in the award-winning, blockbuster movie trilogy.

"We're thrilled that for seven years in a row, movies created with Shake have won the Oscar for best visual effects," said His Steveness. "Shake is helping Hollywood film editors communicate their vision and deliver their art at an Academy Award winning level. We couldn't be happier."

"We could not have done 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy without Shake's fast compositing speed, quality and extensibility," said Joe Letteri, visual effects supervisor, Weta Digital. "Shake was the cornerstone of our visual compositing pipeline."

Weta Digital used Shake to blend visual effects components in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, including live action set passes, digital characters and creatures, set extensions and digital environments. Shake was used to render huge shots and was key in fine-tuning the overall look and feel of every aspect of a shot including colors, composition and camera movement, according to Apple's Oscar PR.

Editor's note: The downside? The work wasn't performed on Apple hardware, but Linux-powered Intel hardware. Weta is famous for its use of low-cost Linux boxes...

On the brighter side, this "win" for Apple's Shake will only boost His Steveness' Hollywood cred as the company pushes its way further into digital entertainment.

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