‘Avatar’ creatures carry Choteau, Montana animator Eric Reynolds into Oscars’ glow

It’s the biggest moment in the biggest movie of all time — the brilliant blue lead character harnesses a huge flame-red flying beast to lead Pandora’s native species, the Na’vi, in a battle against the greedy infiltrating humans.

The moment is the alien version of the hero leading the cavalry on a white horse, and it sprung from the head and hand of Choteau’s Eric Reynolds.

A senior and supervising animator at Weta Digital http://www.wetafx.co.nz/ , Reynolds spent more than three years bringing to life the flying creatures in the blockbuster 3-D movie "Avatar," which stands to win as many as nine Oscars tonight and certainly is the favorite to win the Academy Award for special effects.

"When you start on something this big and new, you can never be sure it will work," Reynolds said from his home in New Zealand. "We knew we had a good movie, but even I was surprised by how successful it was."

Few who knew Reynolds as a child are surprised at his success.

But when he graduated from Choteau High School in 1985, the career path of "computer movie animator" was in its infancy. It took years before the industry caught up to Reynolds’ dual passions for drawing and computer programming.

By KIM SKORNOGOSKI

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