Saturn Award for Best Director

The Saturn Award for Best Director (or Saturn Award for Best Direction) is one of the annual awards given by the American Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. The Saturn Awards, which are the oldest film-specialized awards to reward science fiction, fantasy, and horror achievements (the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is the oldest award for science fiction and fantasy films), included the Best Director category for the first time at the 3rd Saturn Awards, for the 1974/1975 film years.

The award is also the oldest to honor film directors in science fiction, fantasy and horror. It has been given 36 times, including a tie for the 1977 film year.

James Cameron holds the record of the most wins with five (for six nominations), while Steven Spielberg is the most nominated director with eleven nominations (for four wins). Only two other directors have won the award more than once: Peter Jackson (three times) and Bryan Singer (two times). At the 22nd Saturn Awards (for the 1995 film year), Kathryn Bigelow became the first (and currently only) woman to win the award, 15 years before becoming the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director.

List of Who Framed Roger Rabbit characters

The following is a list of characters who appeared in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and its related works.

Eddie Valiant

Eddie Valiant is a Californian private investigator in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In the original novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, Eddie Valiant is a fictional modern day California private detective hired by comic book star Roger Rabbit to investigate the workings of Roger's corrupt employers, the DeGreasy Brothers. When Roger is found dead, and his final words having been censored out, Valiant is soon sent on the case of tracking Roger's murderers. This original incarnation of Eddie is a heavy smoker and has a beard.

The 1988 film gave more insight into the character of Eddie Valiant, who was played by Bob Hoskins. Eddie Valiant and his brother Theodore "Teddy" Valiant were sons of a circus clown (shown by the pictures on their desk), who joined the police force and eventually started their own private investigation service, Valiant and Valiant, in 1934, working largely on Toon cases, such as the kidnapping of Donald Duck's nephews in 1937 or clearing Goofy of accusations of espionage in 1940, both seen as newspaper clippings in Valiant's office. However, when Teddy was killed by the then-unknown toon form of Judge Doom who dropped a piano on him and Eddie in 1942, Eddie turned to the bottle, disappeared from the public eye, and refuses to take any more Toon cases (although he is slow to find work as a regular private eye). He also doesn't smoke, but is an alcoholic.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American live action/animated fantasy-comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis. The screenplay by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman is based on Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings and animals.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which blends live action with animation, stars Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, a private detective, and Charles Fleischer as the voice of Roger Rabbit, a second-banana cartoon character. The plot takes place in 1947, when Roger is framed for the murder of a wealthy Hollywood businessman and he teams with Valiant to find the culprit. The film co-stars Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom, the villain; Kathleen Turner as the uncredited voice of Jessica Rabbit, Roger's cartoon wife; and Joanna Cassidy as Dolores, the detective's girlfriend.

Walt Disney Productions purchased the film rights to the story in 1981. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg, along with his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Zemeckis was brought on to direct the film. Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.

Visual effects

In filmmaking, visual effects (abbreviated VFX) are the processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, expensive, impractical, or simply impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer generated imagery have recently become accessible to the independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and easy-to-use animation and compositing software.

Timing

Visual effects are often integral to a movie's story and appeal. Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production, it usually must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. Visual effects primarily executed in Post-Production with the use of multiple tools and technologies such as graphic design, modeling, animation and similar software, while special effects such as explosions and car chases are made on set. A visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with production and the film's director design, guide and lead the teams required to achieve the desired effects.

Modern animation in the United States

Modern animation of the United States from the late 1980s onward is sometimes referred to as the "American animation renaissance". During this period, many large American entertainment companies reformed and reinvigorated their animation departments following a general decline during the 1970s and 1980s. The United States has had a profound effect on animation worldwide.

Trends

Disney

At the start of the 1980s, Walt Disney Productions had been struggling since Walt Disney's death in 1966, and the 1979 departure of Don Bluth and eleven other associates from the animation department dealt Disney a major blow. Bluth formed a new studio, in direct competition with Disney.

Disney's "Nine Old Men", the animators responsible for Disney's most famous earlier works, and their associates began to hand their traditions down to a new generation of Disney animators. New faces such as Glen Keane, Ron Clements, John Musker, Andreas Deja, and others came to the studio in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period that produced such features as The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon (a live-action/animation hybrid), and The Fox and the Hound, as well as the featurettes The Small One (Bluth's only Disney-directed credit) and Mickey's Christmas Carol (the first screen appearance of Mickey Mouse since 1953).