Used with permission from the Fairbanks Newsminer
Features Editor: Suzanna Caldwell at (907)459-7504.
Photo caption: Ben Grossmann, who grew up in Delta Junction and Fairbanks and attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was nominated for an Academy Award on Tuesday for his work on the film, “Hugo.” / Photo courtesy Ben Grossmann
FAIRBANKS — Ben Grossmann wasn’t up at 6 a.m. Tuesday when the 84th annual Academy Award nominations were announced. The former Interior Alaska resident had been up late the night before, caring for his 1-year-old daughter.
“I wasn’t sitting there, watching it, that’s for sure. I figure catching it an hour or two later wasn’t going to make much of a difference,” he said from his home in Los Angeles. “But then my phone started exploding and I started getting emails and Facebook posts and that’s when I figured, ‘Eh, looks like a nomination in the positive.’”
Grossmann, a visual effects supervisor, was one of four nominated for best visual effects for their work on the film “Hugo.” Sharing the nomination with Grossmann are visual effects supervisor Rob Legato, special effects supervisor Joss Williams and digital effects supervisor Alex Henning. The Martin Scorsese-directed film, about an orphan who lives alone in a Paris railway station and embarks on a mysterious adventure, garnered 11 nominations, including best picture and best director nominations, the most of any film this year.
“Finally,” Grossman, 34, said of the nomination. “I say finally because we’ve been leading up to this moment with the movie ‘Hugo’ and it’s nice to finally have the day when they make the damn announcement so you can stop thinking about it.”
Grossmann grew up in Delta Junction and Fairbanks and attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He worked as a photojournalist, both at the News-Miner and as a stringer for The Associated Press, and later in television.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2001 to pursue film work. Grossmann previously worked with Scorsese on the Rolling Stones documentary “Shine a Light” and the 2010 feature film “Shutter Island.” The Oscar nomination is Grossmann’s first. He won an Emmy in 2006 for Outstanding Visual Effects for his work as a digital composer on the SciFi Channel’s miniseries “The Triangle.”
Film critics have lauded the 3-D in “Hugo” as groundbreaking. Grossmann said he was present in a final screening of a scene for Scorsese with director James Cameron (“Avatar,” “Titanic”) just before “Hugo” was completed. After the screening, Cameron told Grossmann it was the best 3-D film that’s ever been done. Grossmann and his colleagues were modest and tried to tell him the 3-D wasn’t as good as “Avatar.” Cameron wasn’t persuaded.
“‘No, best 3-D film ever, don’t try to narrow my words,’” Grossmann recalled Cameron saying. “So we said, ‘Oh maybe we didn’t screw up. That will be nice.’”
He noted that it takes an extraordinary amount of time to complete a 3-D film. His team worked on 800 shots, more than half of the movie, and spent 15,000 man-days of visual effects work, supervising 400 people in five countries.
Grossmann will attend the Oscar ceremony Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. He’s not sure what his chances of winning are, given that the entire membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will vote. (The nominations are made by those working in the visual effects field.)
“My personal opinion is the odds of us winning are slim, but a lot of people tell me they’re pretty good,” Grossmann said. “I have no idea if there’s a chance that we’ll actually win this thing, but if we did it would be pretty awesome.”
Congratulations Ben! What a great thing to happen! I am sure lots of hard work
went into all of it. But you shined big time! What an accomplishment.