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‘Lost’ effects get
Emmy nod

Congratulations to "Lost" special effects supervisor Archie Ahuna, nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Special Visual Effects category for the hit series' two-part pilot episode. Also nominated are Kevin Blank, Mitch Suskin, Jonathan Spencer Levy, Benoit "Ben" Girard, Laurent M. Abecassis, Kevin Kutchaver, Steve Fong and Bob Lloyd.

Chief special effects artist Blank has been interviewing Honolulu digital graphic artists to replace the Los Angeles-based one used last season. Expect ABC/Touchstone to make a formal announcement of the lucky local hire sometime this week.

The "Lost" Season 1 seven-disc box set, being released Sept. 6, has eight hours of bonus features, including the "Genesis of Lost" and "Welcome to Oahu," which explains the special effects used in the pilot episode's plane crash sequence.

Producers and key crew members held their first script meeting for the second season's first episode Monday at the Dole Cannery production offices. The Cannery is also where local casting is being done, since the Hawaii Film Studio is undergoing major construction ...

Kai Bovaird, co-owner of Honolulu's Cause & F(x) Pictures, recently visited Chris Lee, executive producer of "Superman Returns," and visual effect supervisors in Sydney, Australia, to discuss post-production work on the film. Bovaird worked in Sydney on "The Matrix" films and then came home to set up shop, though 90 percent of his business comes from the mainland.

Lee got to touch down literally in Hawaii last weekend, along with "Superman Returns" director Bryan Singer and writers Dan Harris and Mike Dougherty, while riding on a Warner Bros. studio private jet from Sydney to California to attend the San Diego Comic-Con and make an exclusive presentation to a packed meeting room of 7,000 fans that included four minutes of footage ...

Maui's out as a location of the fourth season of Fox's "The Simple Life" but Nickelodeon is considering a 20-plus episodic series on Oahu of the kid drama "Boarding School." Filming would start "very soon," a source said ...