Dexter Studios celebrated its latest win as the movie Alienoid Part 1 won the Best Visual Effects Award at this year’s Grand Bell Awards.
The company announced on December 12 that Supervisor Jegal Seung, who oversaw the VFX elements in Alienoid Part 1, won the Best Visual Effects Award at the 58th Grand Bell Awards, which got under way on December 9.
Released earlier this year in July, the sci-fi and fantasy action movie Alienoid Part 1 garnered plenty of box office attention as it was directed by Choi Dong-hoon who previously directed Tazza; The High Rollers, Jeon Woo-chi: the Taoist Wizard, The Thieves, and Assassination. The movie features a time warp that goes back and forth between the present where aliens live and the Goryeo Dynasty where Taoist wizards and hermits roam the planet. It was considered an experimental attempt, which was a rare thing in Korea’s film and media industry. Recently, Alienoid Part 1 made its debut overseas – it was screened as the opening film at the London Korean Film Festival – and Part 2 of the movie is expected sometime in 2023.
Dexter Studios’ VFX Supervisor Jay Seung Jaegal said, “This year’s Grand Bell Awards felt more significant to us in that we were able to compete with other films our company’s artists had worked on, including Emergency Declaration and The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure. Being nominated alone is such a great honor, so I’m over the moon with Alienoid Part 1 winning the Award.”
He added, “Alienoid Part 1 was a long-term project that took about five years from the pre-production phase, which is the initial stage of production, to the final VFX work. It involved a series of creative works, which included building a world that did not exist in reality and depicting objects that had never been seen before.” Jegal explained, “To me, the Award feels like a reward for all the work we put in, and a reminder we should work on making something even better in the future. And I would like to share the Award with our artists at Dexter Studios who worked relentlessly on the project.”
Dexter Studio is a company established by first-generation VFX experts in Korea for the production of the movie Mr. Go. At the time, it created a high-quality digital gorilla with technology developed in Korea, which drew plenty of attention across the VFX industry. The research behind Mr. Go was published at global computer graphics societies such as DigiPro and Siggraph as well. Dexter Studios was also the first VFX company in Korea to list its stocks on the stock market under the Special Listed Technology system. To date, the company has established itself as a leader in the VFX industry with a long list of successful projects under its belt, including Along with the Gods, Ashfall, and Space Sweepers.
