Center High grad Letteri wins Oscar for 'Avatar' sequel

Scott Tady, Beaver County Times
·2 min read

Joe Letteri won his fifth Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects on Sunday.

The Center Township native walked on stage and grinned widely as he was handed and held the most glamorous of Hollywood trophies for his groundbreaking work in "Avatar: The Way of Water."

But Letteri didn't get to thank any family or co-workers on camera during the worldwide telecast. One of his fellow "Avatar" recipients gave a slow-to-unwind acceptance speech and though Letteri, whose name was listed first, looked eager to say something on camera, too, he got cut short by the live symphony playing music to signify the show intended to move forward.

A smiling Joe Letteri, far right, holds his Academy Award won in this screen grab from Sunday's award telecast.
A smiling Joe Letteri, far right, holds his Academy Award won in this screen grab from Sunday's award telecast.

The Visual Effects award was presented around 10:25 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, nearly two-and-a-half hours into the three-and-a-half hour telecast.

Letteri's last televised Academy Award acceptance speech came when he and his colleagues won the Best Visual Effects award for 2009's original "Avatar."

The 1975 Center High grad previously won Oscars for the visual effects he supervised for "King Kong," "The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers" and "The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King."

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Letteri has been nominated for visual effects Oscar awards six other times and shared in a Technical Achievement Oscar in 2005 granted by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for "groundbreaking implementations of practical methods for rendering skin and other translucent materials using subsurface scattering techniques."

Joe Letteri, a Center High graduate, is visual effects supervisor on "Avatar: The Way of Water."
Joe Letteri, a Center High graduate, is visual effects supervisor on "Avatar: The Way of Water."

Letteri said in a December interview with The Times the performance capture technique he helped revolutionize with the Gollum character in "The Lord of The Rings" film series ― where facial expressions of live actors are tracked, recorded and rendered to create animations ― had never been done in scenes that so closely mix underwater and above water action, until "Avatar: The Way of Water."

Trailblazer:'Avatar: The Way of Water' visual effects master, a Center High grad, discusses trailblazing work

More:Center High grad Joe Letteri nominated for Academy Award

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Western PA native Joe Letteri wins fifth Oscar for 'Avatar' sequel