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“Avatar: The Way of Water” has made history once more.

As James Cameron’s long-gestating sequel continues its climb up the all-time box-office charts, “The Way of Water” set a new record for the most nominations for a single project from the Visual Effects Society Awards, announced this morning. The film’s 14 nods highlight achievements that range from VFX to character animation to emerging technology, where it accounts for three of the category’s five nominees. This tally surpasses the previous records set by the 11 nominations for the original “Avatar” in 2010 and the 13 nominations for “The Mandalorian” in 2021.

Joining “The Way of Water” on the Ves leaderboard are “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” which respectively top the animation and TV fields with six and seven nominations. The 21st annual Visual Effects Society Awards will take place February 15 at the Beverly Hilton,...

James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” leads the feature competition at the 21st Annual Ves Awards.

The film earned a total of 14 Ves Awards nominations, setting a new record for record nominations for a feature film. The original “Avatar” was the previous record holder when it received 11 nominations at the 8th Annual Ves Awards held in 2010.

“Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio” received six nominations in the animation category making it the top animated contender.

Ves members selected nominees in 25 categories at 27 in-person and virtual nomination events conducted worldwide. The winners will be announced on Feb. 15 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

This year marks the presentation of the first Ves Emerging Technology Award, which celebrates the creators of the technology behind the visuals and honors the inventors of a novel and uniquely innovative tool, device, software or methodology of outstanding value to the art and science of visual effects,...

One of the most exciting things about the shared Emmy nomination for visual-effects supervisor Stephan Fleet and VFX producer Shalena Oxley-Butler of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys” was being able to see each other in person again after a year of working remotely, over video conferencing software and email, from different countries.

But the tone when the 73rd annual Primetime Emmy nominees finally gather might not be completely celebratory. Not only did the Television Academy have to limit the number of nominees who can attend, due to health and safety guidelines amid the Delta variant of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but also, the first night of Creative Arts fell on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Hollywood always wants to — fortunately, I believe — lead the way in being responsible for whatever the issue may be,” says Darin Pfeiffer, events expert and founder and CEO of the Impact Agency.

A solid schedule of independent horror features will screen at the first annual Paranoia Horror Film Festival, running Friday-Sunday, March 13-15. Hosted by Miss Behavin’, the “Princess of Paranoia,” the event takes place aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.

Among the films to be shown are such new and promising chillers as Michael Stokes’ The Beacon (pictured; see our last item here), Jason Stephens’ Necrosis (see item here), Robbie Bryan’s Imurders (see item here) and Joshua Butler’s Vlog. Also terrorizing the Paranoia Fest’s screens are recent releases like Jack Messitt’s superior Midnight Movie (see review here), Josh Eisenstadt’s Dark Reel, Harry Basil’s Fingerprints and Soul’S Midnight and David A. Prior’s Zombie Wars, along with midnight presentations of the original Friday The 13th and Evil Dead II. Christopher P. Garetano’s documentary Horror Business is also in the lineup, and scary...