Best Animated Feature Film – ‘Wall-E’
The Oscar for 2009 Best Animated Feature Film went to the Disney/Pixar sci fi adventure Wall-E. The award was presented by Jennifer Aniston and the film beat Kung Fu Panda and Bolt in this category.

Wall-E is a love story set in the 29th Century and tells the tale of a wide-eyed robot that lives a lonely existence on planet earth with only a cockroach for company. One day Wall-E meets EVE, a highly advanced search robot, whom he follows into the deepest reaches of space thus changing his life and the future of the earth forever.

“I make more money doing animation than doing live action … each year I do one DreamWorks project, and then I take all the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar.”
Jack Black

WALL-E CREDITS
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Produced by: Jim Morris, Lindsey Collins (co-producer) & John Lasseter (executive producer)
Written by: Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon (screenplay) & Pete Docter (story credit)
Music by: Thomas Newman & Peter Gabriel
Editing by: Stephen Schaffer
Studio: Pixar Animation Studios
Distributed by: Walt Disney Pictures

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Best Visual Effects – ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’
…. and the 2009 Oscar for Best Visual Effects went to ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ in a group that also included The Dark Knight and Iron Man.

‘I was born under unusual circumstances.’ And so begins ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, adapted from the 1920 story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards. A man, like any of us, unable to stop time.

The film begins in 2005: an elderly lady on her deathbed tells her daughter the story of a blind clockmaker named Gateau, who was once commissioned to make a majestic clock for the main train station in the city of New Orleans.

Whilst working on the clock, Gateau received the terrible news that his son had died fighting in World War I. In a desperate hope that the clock could help bring back those who had died in the war, Gateau continued work on his clock, and intentionally designed it to run backward.

The film required extensive post production work to create the visual effects for the metamorphosis of the character of Benjamin Button from old man to infant. The director used a camera system called Contour developed by Steve Perlman to capture facial deformation data from live action performances.

CREDITS FOR THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Directed by : David Fincher
Produced by : Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Ray Stark
Written by : Eric Roth
Music by : Alexandre Desplat
Cinematography: Claudio Miranda
Editing by : Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

The full list of winners and details of all the nominees can be viewed at the official 2009 Oscars website www.oscars.org/awards.