Nominees: Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan de Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Red-hot favourite to walk away with the Oscar, Life Of Pi features 700 effects shots, almost 80 minutes of screentime. It benefits from Ang Lee’s collaborative approach to VFX and graceful editing that showed his confidence in its capacity for wonder. “Ang made visual effects part of his daily routine,” MPC’s Guillaume Rocheron told Empire. “Bill (Westenhofer) would present the work to him and we’d be there too, and we’d get feedback from Ang straightaway. Filmmaker, editorial and visual effects [were] all in one room trying to get the movie made.” If you’ve gasped at the film’s two cyclone sequences or its menagerie of beasties, led by the awesome Richard Parker, you’ll know just why this is so hotly tipped.