Oscars Recognise Britain's Technical Talent

Behind the headline-grabbing onscreen talent of this year's Oscar nominees (think Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch and Rosumund Pike) there are hundreds of people excelling in technical brilliance - and a healthy number are British.

Visual effects, hair and makeup and production design are sections sometimes overlooked at this time of year in favour of the more glamorous categories.

But they are vital to the movie-making process and the film industry is looking increasingly to Britain to fill these roles.

Attractive tax breaks mean that more films than ever are also being filmed in the UK.

Paul Franklin has already won one Oscar and has been nominated again for the visual effects he has created for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.

He told Sky News the team were constantly trying to push boundaries with what they achieved.

"I hope what the voters responded to was that we told our story in a very original and interesting way," he said.

"Any movie is a collaboration of lots of skills and talents and in the case of Interstellar visual effects is at the heart of that process of storytelling.

"I think we created some very unusual imagery. We worked very hard to give it a level of believability and a reality in what is really a fantastic story about deep space exploration and studying the place of the human race and universe."

Composer Gary Yershon has been recognised for his score on Mike Leigh's Mr Turner.

He has worked with the British director before, but it is his first time being nominated for a Oscar - something he is beginning to get used to.

He said: "I think what I've managed to do and this is only in retrospect is to catch Turner looking out onto the world, to capture how it feels to be inside him looking out and he's a complicated guy, he's difficult with people and loyal and loving and also cruel.

"He's a mass of contradictions. I don't think I express that in the music, what the music does is to be inside him looking out. I think that's what we've ended up with ... "

Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel tops the list of nominated films along with Birdman, both of which have nine Oscar nods.

The cast's hair and makeup were an essential part of creating his hyper-stylised look and that was down to Frances Hannon.

She told Sky News subtlety for her is key.

"I'd like to think (we were nominated) because my feeling is on film that less is more even if you're looking at monsters in Guardians Of The Galaxy or Foxcatcher where you're trying to change someone into someone they're not without being a lookey-likey.

"Wherever you are if it doesn't jump into your face, if you're distracted then there's something not quite right about it but if it's invisible and it still gives a feeling of the period or the character or whatever it is you're trying to portray you've got it right. So for me I got it right because the work is invisible'.