The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed honors upon eight scientific and technical achievements represented by some 30 individual award recipients during its annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel tonight.
Unlike other Academy Awards to be presented this year, achievements receiving Scientific and Technical Awards need not have been developed and introduced during 2011. Rather, the achievements must demonstrate a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures.
Earning the Academy Award of Merit® (Oscar® Statuette) were:
o Franz Kraus, Johannes Steurer and Wolfgang Riedel for the design and development of the ARRILASER Film Recorder. The ARRILASER film recorder demonstrates a high level of engineering resulting in a compact, user-friendly, low-maintenance device, while at the same time maintaining outstanding speed, exposure ratings and image quality.
The Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque) was given to:
o Radu Corlan, Andy Jantzen, Petru Pop and Richard Toftness for the design and engineering of the Phantom family of high-speed cameras for motion picture production. The Phantom family of high-speed digital cameras, including the Phantom Flex and HD Gold, provide imagery at speeds and efficacy surpassing photochemical technology, while seamlessly intercutting with conventional film production.
o Dr. Jürgen Noffke for the optical design and Uwe Weber for the mechanical design of the ARRI Zeiss Master Prime Lenses for motion picture photography. The Master Primes have achieved a full stop advance in speed over existing lenses, while maintaining state-of-the-art optical quality. This lens family was also the first to eliminate the magnification change that accompanied extreme focus shifts.
o Michael Lewis, Greg Marsden, Raigo Alas and Michael Vellekoop for the concept, design and implementation of the Pictorvision Eclipse, an electronically stabilized aerial camera platform. The Pictorvision Eclipse system allows cinematographers to capture aerial footage at faster flying speeds with aggressive platform maneuvering.
o E.F. “Bob” Nettmann for the concept and system architecture, Michael Sayovitz for the electronic packaging and integration, Brad Fritzel for the electronic engineering, and Fred Miller for the mechanical engineering of the Stab-C Classic, Super-G and Stab-C Compact stabilizing heads. This versatile family of 5-axis camera and lens stabilizers allows any standard motion picture camera to be fitted into the open architecture of the structure. The system can be quickly balanced and made ready for shooting platforms such as helicopters, boats, camera cars or cranes.
o John D. Lowry, Ian Cavén, Ian Godin, Kimball Thurston and Tim Connolly for the development of a unique and efficient system for the reduction of noise and other artifacts, thereby providing high-quality images required by the filmmaking process. The “Lowry Process” uses advanced GPU-accelerated, motion estimation-based image processing tools to enhance image quality.
o FUJIFILM Corporation, Hideyuki Shirai, Dr. Katsuhisa Oozeki and Hiroshi Hirano for the design and development of the FUJIFILM black and white recording film ETERNA-RDS 4791 for use in the archival preservation of film and digital images. Specifically designed for laser film recording and widely used in the industry today, the high-resolution FUJIFILM ETERNA-RDS 4791 film stock is an important step in protecting the heritage of the motion picture industry.
And garnering the Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate) were:
o Andrew Clinton and Mark Elendt for the invention and integration of micro-voxels in the Mantra software. This work allowed, for the first time, unified and efficient rendering of volumetric effects such as smoke and clouds, together with other computer graphics objects, in a micro-polygon imaging pipeline.
Special honors
The ARRILASER wasn’t the only recipient of an Oscar statuette during the gala evening ceremony. Visual effects pioneer and filmmaking visionary Douglas Trumbull won the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, which is an Oscar. The award recognized Trumbull, a designer, director, inventor and entrepreneur, for his lifetime of technical contributions and leadership in the motion picture industry.
Trumbull is known for hs breakthrough visual effects work. He made major artistic and technical contributions to such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, Silent Running, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek–The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and Tree of Life.
In the course of his work, Trumbull created, developed or improved numerous filmmaking techniques and tools, including slit-scan photography, process photography, miniature compositing, interpositive matte painting, large-format filming, high frame rate photography and projection, synchronized multiscale filming, motion control photography, virtual reality systems, interactive motion simulators and digital cinema. He has been awarded more than a dozen related patents.
In 1975 Trumbull founded Future General Corporation, a research and special effects house that not only served as a training ground for many leading filmmakers and visual effects artists, but fostered several related companies as well.
Trumbull has earned three Academy Award nominations for Visual Effects and received a Scientific and Engineering Aard in 1992 as part of the design team for the CP-65 Showscan Camera System for 65mm motion picture photography. Trumbull continues to pursue the breaking of new ground as he is currently planning to move into 120 frames per second feature entertainment (see separate SHOOTonline story, 2/11).
Meanwhile, also honored was visual effects technologist Jonathan Erland who received the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, a special medallion, for outstanding service and dedication in upholding the high standards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Erland made hs first major mark in the industry upon joining the then newly created Industrial Light & Magic to work on the visual effects for the 1977 film Star Wars. He continued as a director of research and development for Apogee Productions where he received patents for a reverse bluescreen traveling matte process, the Blue-Max flux projector and a method for making front projection screens. The innovations, along with the development of a digital traveling matte system, also earned Academy Scientific and Technical Awards.
In 2007 Erland received an Award of Commendation for “his leadership and efforts toward identifying and solving the problem of High-Speed Emulsion Stress Syndrome in motion picture film stock.”
An Academy member since 1984, Erland was instrumental in establishing Visual Effect as a separate Academy branch in 1995. He has served 11 years on the Academy’s Board of Governors and many years on the Executive Committees of both the Visual Effects Branch and the Scientific and Technical Awards. He is also a founding member of the Academy’s Scientific and Technology Council.
The Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony was emceed by actress Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element, Resident Evil, the upcoming Resident Evil: Retribution). Portions of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be included in the Oscar ceremony. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.
