Joe Letteri's tuxedo is getting a workout these days as he hops from city to city, ceremony to ceremony, accepting awards for the visual effects in "Avatar."

That's OK, the Aliquippa native said. He has it easier than the nominated ladies on the red carpet.

He was speaking by phone Wednesday from San Francisco, where he had been for a few days' break. He left for L.A. today, in advance of the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday, when he is favored to win a fourth special effects Oscar.

As a partner and senior visual effects supervisor for WETA Ltd., the New Zealand-based effects studio that creates Hollywood mega-magic, he's recently been to London to receive a BAFTA Award -- the British equivalent of an Oscar -- and then Los Angeles Feb. 28 to accept three Visual Effects Society awards for his work on James Cameron's blockbuster.

The travel and camaraderie of awards season have been fun, he said, but it all comes to an end Sunday. "Avatar's" effects team is competing against counterparts from "District 9" and "Star Trek."

"There are four of us nominated, so if we win, they'll call all four up, and I'll be the one to speak," Mr. Letteri said. Asked if he had anything prepared, he said, "I'll think of something when I get there."

Words might not come easily, but give the man a computer, and figuring out the impossible can happen at any moment.

Mr. Letteri, 52, has earned Academy Awards for his design and development work on Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "King Kong."

"It's all about getting the characters right" is how he describes his job. And it's all about the vision of real-life characters like hands-on director/writer, engineer/physicist, king-of-the-film-world James Cameron.

"It's different with Jim because he does get very specific, and the good side of that is he really thinks through what he wants and you can have very in-depth conversations with him about the effect you're trying to achieve," Mr. Letteri said. "And the whole science behind it, he really gets into that, so that part is very enjoyable."

One of the VES Awards won by Mr. Letteri and his team was Best Single Visual Effect of the Year, from a scene described as "Neytiri Drinking."

The WETA team had debated what to enter before settling on the scene involving the native of Pandora, the alien world where "Avatar" is set, and the performance by actress Zoe Saldana as Neytiri.

"Generally, that award every year goes to some shot that has big explosions in it. I always put in shots like with Gollum and Kong that are really sort of character moments, and we decided to do that again this year anyway, just because if you look at that shot, you can see all the interaction with the water, the jungle, the characters, the performances. It's all encapsulated nicely in that shot. And, fortunately, I think people got that this year."

Among the groundbreaking technology that has helped set "Avatar" apart from other 3-D, digital-effects films is the performance-capture technique for facial accuracy. Tiny individual cameras, worn like a microphone headset, filmed the actors' faces in close-up.

"We had done motion-capture performance before for the face with multiple external cameras and fixed cameras with [markers] on the face. Jim wanted to pursue this idea of a camera head rig, so we designed and built it. Glenn Derry was the engineer who actually physically built the head rigs, but we designed all the software and solved all the facial system and got that working."

The result has resonated with audiences, who have made "Avatar" a box-office sensation and earned the film nine Academy Award nominations, including for best picture and director.

In 2003, Mr. Letteri became the only American partner who wasn't an original member of director Jackson's WETA team, an acknowledgement of the workshop's success rather than a change in his work, he said.

It's been almost nine years that he's lived and worked in New Zealand. He gets back to see family and friends in Beaver County when he can, including a trip home last Christmas.

Awards season has brought him back to the States, but after Sunday, it's back to New Zealand and back to work. He's supervising effects for Steven Spielberg's first 3-D, motion-capture film "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn," which is based on the early 20th-century graphic novels by Belgian artist Georges Remi, aka Herge. Mr. Letteri has been preparing to make the director's vision a reality by reading the book series and getting to know the characters.

Gollum, King Kong, Neytiri, whatever lurks in the shadows for adventurer Tintin and his dog, Snowy ... "It's really all the same," Mr. Letteri said.

"It's all about getting the characters right, the design of the characters, what are you trying to say, how human are they. ... It's sort of a digital version of casting."

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.