Stoneyford revels in Oscar delight - Kilkenny Live

Kilkenny native Colbert Fennelly visited Malzard’s Bar & Pub on Saturday and brought with him an Oscar.

Fennelly worked as technical environment lead on one of last year’s biggest films, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The film became the third highest-grossing film of all time and won the academy award for best visual effects. 

There was a returning hero’s welcome for Colbert Fennelly at Malzard’s pub on Saturday — a place he often frequented when he was younger, and had originally planned to just meet up and catch up with a few friends on Saturday evening.

He didn’t want to interrupt the rugby match and waited until it was over before he ‘sneaked’ into the back kitchen but he was promptly discovered and surrounded by the excited crowd.

“I’ve been very surprised with the excitement on people’s faces from just holding it, from all levels, from young kids who’ve all seen Avatar up to every age, even friends of my father’s who are in their 80s,” he said.

“They were all very excited to have it in the village.”

Colbert is currently based in Los Angeles. He is originally from Stoneyford and comes home from America once or twice a year.
One thing he would miss from home is the food and eating at home.

“Sometimes the lads want to go out to a restaurant and I’d prefer to stay at home with a cup of tea and a sandwich with fresh bread,” he said.

Colbert originally worked as a digital environment artist on the Avatar movies for two or three years. This involved working on developing the world that the characters in these movies inhabited.

He currently works as a technical environment lead, which involves working with the artists and coming up with solutions to issues as they arise.

This work would include helping to fix broken tools or helping artists with problems that would make them incapable of moving forward.

Colbert said he is always on call and that there would always be something to deal with. The work he does would be a mix of on set and at home, whereas before the pandemic it would have always been on set.

He revealed that they have been working on the second, third and part of the fourth Avatar movies over the last seven or eight years. Over the last two years they had been mainly working on the second film.

They are currently working on the third film.

“It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on a project,” he said.

Colbert has always been interested in this line of work. He has been working in animation and films for the past 30 years. He worked at Disney on animated features for ‘10 or 12 years’.

“An opportunity came up to work on Avatar about nine years ago but the film then wasn’t getting going so they put us onto the theme park in disney world,” he explained.

He worked on the disney world ride, Pandora, for about two years while they were wand then they went on to work on the film.

“It’s more about getting the story that wants to be told into the visual side,” he said, when describing working on the films and theme park attractions.

He has worked with very creative people on the set of these films.

“The biggest thing was working with James Cameron and Richie Baneham from Dublin,” he said.

Baneham is allowing the crew to take the Oscar with them and show it to their families or take it to local schools to inspire the students.

“That’s the fun part of it,” he said.

He also said that one of the first things people remark on after holding the prestigious award is how weighty it is.
“It’s heavier than most people think,” he said.

On Monday of this week, Colbert also brought the Oscar to Stoneyford National School to show the students and perhaps inspire them to win their own one day.