Oscars clean-sweep for LOTR visual effects team

4.15pm

The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King tonight completed an Oscar clean-sweep in the Best Visual Effects category.

The two previous Lord Of The Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, also won the Best Visual Effects Oscar.

Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke tonight added their third Oscar to an already crowded mantelpieces.

The quartet took home the Oscar as representatives of hundreds of people w ho created the digital and animated effects which brought J R R Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle Earth to the screen.

They thanked the Academy for their generosity, and paid tribute to the team at Wellington effects studio Weta Workshop.

- NZPA