The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences has announced that ten scientific and technical achievements,
represented by 33 individual award recipients, will be honoured at its annual
Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation on Saturday, 13 February, at the
Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, California. In addition, the Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) will receive a special award recognising a
century of fundamental contributions to the advancement of motion picture
standards and technology.
“This year’s honourees represent a wide range of new tech, including a modular
inflatable airwall system for composited visual effects, a ubiquitous 3D digital paint
system and a 3D printing technique for animation,’ says Richard Edlund, Academy
Award-winning visual effects artist and chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards
Committee. “With their outstanding, innovative work, these technologists, engineers
and inventors have further expanded filmmakers’ creative opportunities on the big
screen.’
Unlike other Academy Awards to be presented this year, achievements receiving
Scientific and Technical Awards need not have been developed and introduced
during 2015. Rather, the achievements must demonstrate a proven record of
contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures.
The Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievements are:
Technical Achievement Awards (Academy Certificates)
– To Michael John Keesling for the design and development of Image Shaker, an
optical system that convincingly creates the illusion of the camera shaking in a
variable and repeatable manner. The Image Shaker was unique and superior to
alternatives in use when it was invented two decades ago, and it continues to be
used today.
– To David McIntosh, Steve Marshall Smith, Mike Branham and Mike Kirilenko for
the engineering and development of the Aircover Inflatables Airwall. This system of
modular inflatable panels can be erected on location, at lengths reaching hundreds
of feet, with exceptional speed and safety. When used to support blue or green
screens, the Airwall permits composite shots of unprecedented scale.
– To Trevor Davies, Thomas Wan, Jon Scott Miller, Jared Smith and Matthew
Robinson for the development of the Dolby Laboratories PRM Series Reference
Colour Monitors. The PRM’s pioneering and innovative design allows the stable,
accurate representation of images with the entire luminance range and colour
gamut used in contemporary theatrical feature presentation.
– To Ronald Mallet and Christoph Bregler for the design and engineering of the
Industrial Light & Magic Geometry Tracker, a novel, general-purpose tracker and
solver. Geometry Tracker facilitates convincing interaction of digital and live-action
elements within a scene. Its precise results and tight integration with other ILM
animation technologies solve a wider range of match-animation challenges than was
previously possible.
– To Jim Hourihan, Alan Trombla and Seth Rosenthal for the design and
development of the Tweak Software RV system, a highly extensible media player
system. RV’s multi-platform toolset for review and playback, with comprehensive
APIs, has allowed studios of all sizes to take advantage of a state-of-the-art
workflow and has achieved widespread adoption in the motion picture industry.
– To Richard Chuang and Rahul Thakkar for the ground-breaking design, and to
Andrew Pilgrim, Stewart Birnam and Mark Kirk for the review workflows and
advanced playback features, of the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System.
Over its nearly two decades of development, this pioneering system enabled
desktop and digital theatre review. It continues to provide artist-driven, integrated,
consistent and highly scalable studio-wide playback and interactive reviews.
– To Keith Goldfarb, Steve Linn, Brian Green and Raymond Chih for the development
of the Rhythm & Hues Global DDR System. This consistent, integrated, production
database-backed review system enables a recordable workflow and an efficient,
collaborative content review process across multiple sites and time zones.
– To J Robert Ray, Cottalango Leon and Sam Richards for the design, engineering
and continuous development of Sony Pictures Imageworks Itview. With an extensive
plug-in API and comprehensive facility integration including editorial functions,
Itview provides an intuitive and flexible creative review environment that can be
deployed globally for highly efficient collaboration.
Scientific and Engineering Awards (Academy Plaques)
– To Brian McLean and Martin Meunier for pioneering the use of rapid prototyping
for character animation in stop-motion film production. Laika’s inventive use of
rapid prototyping has enabled artistic leaps in character expressiveness, facial
animation, motion blur and effects animation. Through highly specialised pipelines
and techniques, 3D printing capabilities have been harnessed with colour uniformity,
mechanical repeatability, and the scale required to significantly enhance stop-
motion animated feature films.
– To Jack Greasley, Kiyoyuki Nakagaki, Duncan Hopkins and Carl Rand for the
design and engineering of the Mari 3D texture painting system. Combining powerful,
multilayer painting tools and a unique texture-management system, Mari simplifies
working with large, high-resolution texture sets. It has achieved broad adoption in
the visual effects industry, often supplanting long-term in-house systems.
Special Award (Plaque)
– To the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. For 100 years, the
society’s members have nurtured technology, provided essential standards, and
offered the expertise, support, tools and infrastructure for the creation and post-
production of motion pictures.
Portions of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be included in the
Oscar telecast.
Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2015 will be presented on Oscar
Sunday, 28 February 2016, at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland
Centre.
