Oscar Predictions: Best Production Design & Best Visual Effects

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.

I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

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Previously:

Introduction &Documentary Feature

 

Glossary:

BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

ADG - Art Director's Guild Award

VES - Visual Effects Guild's Award

Best Production Design

(In Order of Likelihood)

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BAFTA - Production Design - Nominee

ADG - Period Production Design – Winner

2. 1917

BAFTA - Production Design - Winner

ADG - Period Production Design – Nominee 

3. Jojo Rabbit

BAFTA - Production Design - Nominee

ADG - Period Production Design – Nominee 

4. Parasite

ADG - Contemporary Production Design – Winner 

5. The Irishman

BAFTA - Production Design - Nominee

ADG - Period Production Design – Nominee 

Production Design has some decent precursors. An Art Directors Guild winner (they have 3 categories) has gone on to win 14 of the last 20 Oscars, including the last 6 in a row. They’ve also at least nominated all of the last 20 Oscar winners. BAFTA is a little worse, matching only 9 of the last 20 winners. They’ve nominated 18 of the last 20 winners, although missing Black Panther last year sure is worrisome. The only time the BAFTA winner won the Oscar despite losing the ADG award was The Aviator all the way back in 2004.

What gives me some pause is the 5 years when Academy went their own way entirely. That includes a win for Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Sweeny Todd in 2007 too. So, this all tells me that voters can be swayed by colorful or "most" production design.

So, how can we apply all this to the horse race? It’s hard seeing The Irishman winning this. It needs to be way more of a front-runner for Best Picture for me to think voters will be swayed by this. We all love Parasite, which did win the Contemporary ADG Award. The only Contemporary ADG winner to ever go on to win the Oscar is La La Land, which was much more of a production design assault on the eyes. Parasite’s is far more subtle. I’ve heard rumblings that Jojo Rabbit is a stealth contender here. WWII production design doesn’t have a successful Oscar history lately. And, if we invite the Wes Anderson comparisons, only the hyper-specific Grand Budapest Hotel has won the Oscar of all Anderson’s movies.

That leaves it as 1917 vs. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in my mind. As a British production that dominated the ceremony, I can’t read much into 1917’s BAFTA win. That’s more of a case where a loss would’ve thrown it out of the running. A win just confirms that it stands a chance. The Period ADG award for Hollywood means a lot more to me. The fact that nearly all Academy voters know Los Angeles well enough to appreciate the art direction of Hollywood is a big plus.

Best Visual Effects

(In Order of Likelihood)

1. 1917

BAFTA - Visual Effects – Winner

2. The Irishman

BAFTA - Visual Effects – Nominee

3. The Lion King

BAFTA - Visual Effects – Nominee

4. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

BAFTA - Visual Effects – Nominee

VES - Visual Effects (Live-Action) - Nominee

5. Avengers: Endgame

BAFTA - Visual Effects – Nominee

VES - Visual Effects (Live-Action) - Nominee

Unless a movie completely dominates the ceremony (like The Jungle Book, Gravity, Life of Pi), I don’t read much into the VES Awards as an Oscar harbinger, and no movie dominated it this year. The BAFTA winner is pretty significant though. All 20 of the last Oscar winners were nominated for the BAFTA and 15 of the last 20 Oscar winners also won the BAFTA.

In recent years, when the Oscars and BAFTA have disagreed, it’s because the Oscar voters opted to award the most “prestigious” movie in the nominees. Hence, First Man’s win last year, Ex Machina’s win in 2015, and Hugo’s win in 2011.

This looks like a layup for 1917. It’s the lone Best Picture nominee in the field. 10 of the last 11 times a Best Picture has been nominated here, it went on to win. The only exception was Ex Machina’s 2015 win over The Martian. That’s hardly disqualifying, because The Martian was a very weak Best Picture nominee in the first place. 1917’s BAFTA win cements it in my mind as the visual effects front runner.

There’s a chance voters could be swayed by the infamous de-aging technology in The Irishman, but so much of the narrative around that movie has been about pointing out the limitations of that technology rather than praising it. The Lion King’s effects haven’t been nearly as universally praised as The Jungle Book’s in 2016. Despite all three movies in this trilogy getting nominated, the last Star Wars movie to win for visual effects was Return of the Jedi in 1983 (!). The last Marvel movie to win was Spider-Man 2 in 2004, even though just last year Black Panther was riding a better wave of press than any Marvel movie ever*.

*Black Panther wasn't even nominated, which just sounds crazy.