Well, Pablo beat me to it, but I too would like to congatulate John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and Allen Hall on their recent win at the Oscars, for their effects work on Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. Obviously I don't have the same insider perspective as Mr. Hidalgo, but... anyway, congrats!

It's been an unlucky 13 years since ILM last won that award. It's had a lot of tough competition, I suppose... I still think it was kind of ridiculous that Revenge of the Sith wasn't nominated for Visual Effects...

But hey, they won! Great job. POTC was indeed fantastic. I forget who it was who pointed it out -- either Pablo or Ghent, maybe? -- that some press around release time actually thought that Davy Jones' snake beard was real, or at least done all with prosthetics and such. That's impressive.

(I'd also like to point out that 2/3 of the nominees this year were ILM jobs... )

P.S. I liked the acceptance speech... "You know the naysayers said that four blind kids from the Bronx couldn't make it in visual effects, but here we are." Indeed! Haha.

P.P.S. At first I thought John Knoll thanked Bill Nye, but no, it was Bill Nighy...