Weta team wins best visual effects Oscar

From left, Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Andrew R. Jones and Richard Baneham pose backstage with the Oscar for best achievement in visual effects for "Avatar" at the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

The Weta Digital team from Wellington has won the best visual effects Oscar for the movie Avatar.

Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew Jones from Weta Digital were on stage in Hollywood to accept the Academy Award for their work on the box office sensation.

Letteri, in his acceptance speech, thanked "Eileen Moran and everyone at Weta Digital for your talent and creativity".

The team won the Bafta award in the same category in London last month.

The movie's director of photography, Mauro Fiore, won the Oscar for best cinematography, thanking "everybody in New Zealand" in his acceptance speech.

Earlier, Kim Sinclair was among the team to accept the Oscar for best arts direction for Avatar. He was the director for the film sets done in Wellington.

While their colleagues collected the golden statues in Los Angeles, Weta Digital staff soaked up the success with a party in a Wellington waterfront pub.

One of the company's visual effects supervisors on Avatar, Wayne Stables, told media outside the party this afternoon that the team spent "too many hours probably" working on the film.

"But we all work together and that is one of the great things about our company and why we love working," he said.

"We are incredibly proud of everybody we work with."

Weta Digital is part of a number of companies in Wellington which includes Weta Workshop, Weta Productions, Weta Collectibles and Park Road Post Production that are co-owned by previous Oscar award winning director Peter Jackson.

It was founded by Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. Letteri, its senior visual effects director, was also appointed a director.