Patrick Stewart was so inspired by the inventors and inventions being honored by the motion picture academy Saturday night (2/10) that he offered a spontaneous recitation of a scene from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
The venerable actor hosted the academy’s annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony, an untelevised dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he closed the evening by going off-script with Puck’s plea in defense of art.
Stewart was a gamely host throughout the more than three-hour program, calling the honorees “film magicians” and poking fun at his own lack of high-tech understanding.
“I have to tell you, I wouldn’t know the difference between a warp-core breach and a space-time continuum if they got into bed with me!” the 77-year-old actor said to raucous applause.
Stewart presented nine awards for hardware and software innovations, along with three Oscar statuettes.
Two of the Oscars went to the creator and developer of the Houdini visual effects and animation system, a collection of tools for computer-generated effects that has been used in more than 600 feature films. Mark Elendt and Side Effects Software each accepted an Oscar for their 25 years of work on the program. Four other Houdini collaborators received an academy plaque.
The third Oscar was the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, which recognizes extraordinary technological contributions to the film industry. Jonathan Erland became the 26th recipient to date for his decades of study, innovation and advocacy for the science of movies. Erland was a founder of the academy’s visual effects branch, co-founder of the Visual Effects Society and counts the original “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” among his film credits.
“I intend to work until I drop,” Erland said as he accepted his award.
He referred to film as an art-science, adding, “the ultimate goal and purpose of art is enlightenment.”
Other inventions honored Saturday included a rotating, helicopter-mounted camera that was recently used on “The Revenant” and “Dunkirk” and a waterproof, telescopic camera crane used on “Logan” and “Wonder Woman.”
Digital developments accounted for the rest of the prizes. Short videos illuminated the practical side of the various innovations; how these software programs help artists design and animate characters and move them in space.
Such advances “allow animators to work as the speed of their imaginations,” said an engineer on the Premo character animation system used in “The Boss Baby” and other DreamWorks Animation features.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has singled out scientific contributions for awards since 1931. The Sci-Tech Awards have had their own dedicated evening since 1977.
“In cinema,” Erland said, “art and science are bonded together.”
Stewart said that as Erland accepted his award, “it occurred to me that another Englishman wrote something once which is perhaps appropriate for this event.”
“He didn’t know it would be, of course, because he lived 400 years ago,” Stewart said as he introduced the passage he recited from memory.
“If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended — That you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.”
Here’s a rundown of Sci-Tech honorees:
ACADEMY AWARD OF MERIT (OSCAR STATUETTE)
To Mark Elendt and Side Effects Software for the creation and development of the Houdini visual effects and animation system. With more than twenty years of continual innovation, Houdini has delivered the power of procedural methods to visual effects artists, making it the industry standard for bringing natural phenomena, destruction and other digital effects to the screen.
GORDON E. SAWYER AWARD (OSCAR STATUETTE)
Jonathan Erland
Presented to an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.
SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING AWARDS (ACADEMY PLAQUES)
To John Coyle, Brad Hurndell, Vikas Sathaye and Shane Buckham for the concept, design, engineering and implementation of the Shotover K1 Camera System. This innovative six-axis stabilized aerial camera mount, with its enhanced ability to frame shots while looking straight down, enables greater creative freedom while allowing pilots to fly more effectively and safely.
To Jeff Lait, Mark Tucker, Cristin Barghiel and John Lynch for their contributions to the design and architecture of the Houdini visual effects and animation system. Houdini’s dynamics framework and workflow management tools have helped it become the industry standard for bringing natural phenomena, destruction and other digital effects to the screen.
To Bill Spitzak and Jonathan Egstad for the visionary design, development and stewardship of the Nuke compositing system. Built for production at Digital Domain, Nuke has become a ubiquitous and flexible tool used across the motion picture industry, enabling novel and sophisticated workflows at an unprecedented scale.
To Abigail Brady, Jon Wadelton and Jerry Huxtable for their significant contributions to the architecture and extensibility of the Nuke compositing system. Expanded as a commercial product at The Foundry, Nuke is a comprehensive, versatile and stable system that has established itself as the backbone of compositing and image processing pipelines across the motion picture industry.
To Leonard Chapman for the overall concept, design and development, to Stanislav Gorbatov for the electronic system design, and to David Gasparian and Souhail Issa for the mechanical design and integration of the Hydrascope telescoping camera crane systems. With its fully waterproof construction, the Hydrascope has greatly advanced crane technology and versatility by enabling precise long-travel multi-axis camera movement in, out of and through fresh or salt water.
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS (ACADEMY CERTIFICATES)
To Jason Smith and Jeff White for the original design, and to Rachel Rose and Mike Jutan for the architecture and engineering, of the BlockParty procedural rigging system at Industrial Light & Magic. BlockParty streamlines the rigging process through a comprehensive connection framework, a novel graphical user interface, and volumetric rig transfer, which has enabled ILM to build richly detailed and unique creatures while greatly improving artist productivity.
To Joe Mancewicz, Matt Derksen and Hans Rijpkema for the design, architecture and implementation of the Rhythm & Hues Construction Kit rigging system. This toolset provides a novel approach to character rigging that features topological independence, continuously editable rigs and deformation workflows with shape-preserving surface relaxation, enabling fifteen years of improvements to production efficiency and animation quality.
To Alex Powell for the design and engineering, to Jason Reisig for the interaction design, and to Martin Watt and Alex Wells for the high-performance execution engine of the Premo character animation system at DreamWorks Animation. Premo’s speed and simplicity enable animators to pose full-resolution characters in representative shot context, significantly increasing their productivity.
To Rob Jensen for the foundational design and continued development, to Thomas Hahn for the animation toolset, and to George ElKoura, Adam Woodbury and Dirk Van Gelder for the high-performance execution engine of the Presto Animation System at Pixar Animation Studios. Presto allows artists to work interactively in scene context with full-resolution geometric models and sophisticated rig controls, and has significantly increased the productivity of character animators at Pixar.
