Nominations for the 80th Academy Awards have been announced by Academy President Sid Ganis and Oscar winner Kathy Bates.

Ganis and Bates, who won an Academy Award for her lead performance in “Misery” (1990), announced the nominees in 10 of the 24 categories at a live news conference attended by over 400 international media representatives.

Academy members selected the nominees in their respective branches, with the exception of the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, in which nominations were selected by vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees. Ballots were mailed to the 5,829 voting members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

For the third year in a row, ILM pulled in two of the three nomination spots with Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Skywalker Sound also dominated the sound nominations taking three of the five slots in Sound Editing for their work on There Will Be Blood, Transformers and Ratatouille, which also received another nomination in the Sound Mixing category.

Official screenings of all pictures with one or more nominations will begin this weekend for members at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings also will be held at the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York and the Bay Area.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented on February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the US ABC, starting at 5:00pm, (Pacific Time). The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

VFX and Animation Oscar Nominations

Achievement in visual effects
      “The Golden Compass” (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners)
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
      “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (Walt Disney)
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
      “Transformers” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

Best animated feature film of the year
      “Persepolis” (Sony Pictures Classics) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
      “Ratatouille” (Walt Disney) Brad Bird
      “Surf's Up” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

Best animated short film
      “I Met the Walrus”
A Kids & Explosions Production
Josh Raskin
      “Madame Tutli-Putli” (National Film Board of Canada)
A National Film Board of Canada Production
Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
      “Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)” (Premium Films)
A BUF Compagnie Production
Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse
      “My Love (Moya Lyubov)” (Channel One Russia)
A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production
Alexander Petrov
      “Peter & the Wolf” (BreakThru Films)
A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production
Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

Original screenplay
      “Juno” (Fox Searchlight)
Written by Diablo Cody
      “Lars and the Real Girl” (MGM)
Written by Nancy Oliver
      “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)
Written by Tony Gilroy
      “Ratatouille” (Walt Disney)
Screenplay by Brad Bird
Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
      “The Savages” (Fox Searchlight)
Written by Tamara Jenkins