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    ASC presents Student Heritage Awards to MacMillan, Feng, Owen

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1592 Views
    Zhili "Evan" Feng of Chapman University won The Isidore Mankofsky Heritage Award (Undergraduate Category) for "Where The Bird Goes"
    LOS ANGELES --

    The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) presented this year’s Student Heritage Awards during a virtual presentation on Saturday (3/5). Chosen for demonstrating exceptional cinematography skills in their submitted work, the three winning student filmmakers are:

    • Lawrence Sher, ASC presented the Judy Irola Student Heritage Award (Graduate Category) to Seth MacMillan of the American Film Institute for My Life Stopped At 15.
    • The Isidore Mankofsky Heritage Award (Undergraduate Category) was presented by Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC to Zhili “Evan” Feng of Chapman University for Where The Bird Goes.
    • And Shana Hagan, ASC gave the Haskell Wexler Documentary Award to Tristan Owen of Florida State University for The Castle Builder.

    ASC president Stephen Lighthill, Student Awards co-chairs Crag Kief and Armando Salas, and Sony’s manager of digital cinema camera sales and business development Daniel Perry also took part in this special ceremony. As this year’s student awards sponsor, Sony bestowed gift packages to all the winners.

    The ASC Student Heritage Awards are designed to encourage and support the next generation of cinematographers, and to celebrate the memory of an ASC member. Irola was a cinematographer, documentarian and educator (An Ambush of Ghosts, Niger ‘66: A Peace Corps Diary). Mankofsky, a longtime chairperson of the ASC Student Awards, earned three Emmy® nominations and shot feature films including The Jazz Singer and Somewhere In Time. The Documentary category is enduringly dedicated to Oscar®-winner Wexler, ASC (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Bound For Glory)

    The ASC Student Heritage Award program was inaugurated in 1999. Many of the students previously recognized have gone on to have successful careers in filmmaking, including the Student Awards Committee co-chairs Kief and Salas, alongside other ASC members Nelson Cragg, Masanobu Takayanagi and Lisa Wiegand.

    Tags:American Society of CinematographersASCStudent Heritage Awards



    Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died

    Saturday, December 21, 2024
    Suchir Balaji poses for a photo in Hawaii in 2018. Balaji was a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who died in November 2024. (Balaji Ramamurthy via AP)

    Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.

    Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.

    "We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," said a statement from OpenAI.

    Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said "appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation." The city's chief medical examiner's office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide.

    His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a "happy, smart and brave young man" who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.

    Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.

    "Suchir's contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn't have succeeded without him," said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what... Read More

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