Let technicians be rewarded.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the 16 science-technology achievements that will be honored at its annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony next month. See the full list below.
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Achievements marked for Sci-Tech Awards do not need to have been developed and promoted within a specific period of time, but must demonstrate a proven record of adding significant value to the motion picture production process, according to AMPAS.
“Each year, a global group of technology practitioners and experts set out to examine the extraordinary tools and techniques used in the production of motion pictures,” said Barbara Ford Grant, chair of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee. awards. “This year, we’re honoring 16 technologies for their extraordinary contributions to how we create and enhance the film experience, from the safe application of special effects on set, to new levels of fidelity and immersive audio in image presentation, to open frameworks that allow artists to share. Create digital creations seamlessly across different software and studios. “These remarkable achievements in the art and science of filmmaking have taken our medium to an unprecedented level of excellence.”
The Science Technology Awards ceremony will be held on Friday, February 23, at the Academy Cinema Museum in Los Angeles. Here is the full list of 2024 Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievements, with descriptions via AMPAS:
Technical Achievement Awards (Academy Certificates)
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To Bill Beck for his pioneering use of semiconductor lasers in theater laser projection systems. Bill Beck’s advocacy and education for the motion picture industry while at Laser Light Engines contributed to the transition to laser projection in theatrical exhibition. Gregory T. Niven for his pioneering work in using laser diodes in laser projection systems in theatre. Gregory T. Niven demonstrated and developed specifications for laser light sources for theatrical exhibition at Novalux and Necsel; thus pioneering the industry’s transition to laser cinema projection technology. Yoshitaka Nakatsu, Yoji Nagao, Tsuyoshi Hirao, Tomonori Morizumi, and Kazuma Kozuru for developing laser diodes for theater laser projection systems. While at Nichia Corporation’s Laser Diode Division, Yoshitaka Nakatsu, Yoji Nagao, Tsuyoshi Hirao, Tomonori Morizumi, and Kazuma Kozuru collaborated closely with cinema professionals and manufacturers, leading to the development and industry-wide adoption of blue and green laser modules matched in wavelengths and power levels. specific needs of the cinema market.
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Arnold Peterson and Elia P. Popov for their ongoing design and engineering, and John Frazier for the initial concept of the Blind Driver Roof Pod. The roof pod improves the safety, speed and range of stunt driving, expands camera placement options and captures capable in-car footage, leading to rapid industry adoption.
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Jon G. Belyeu for the design and engineering of Movie Works Cable Cutter devices. The unique and durable design of this pyrotechnic cable cutter assembly has made them the preferred method for safe, precise and reliable release of suspension cables in motion picture production for over thirty years.
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To James Eggleton and Delwyn Holroyd for the design, implementation and integration of the High Density Encoding (HDE) lossless compression algorithm within the Codex recording toolset. The HDE codec reduces the storage and bandwidth required for increasing amounts of data from high photosite count cameras, allowing productions to more efficiently leverage familiar and proven camera raw workflows.
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To Jeff Lait, Dan Bailey, and Nick Avramoussis for the continued development and expansion of OpenVDB’s feature set. OpenVDB’s fundamental engineering advances contributed by the open source community have led to its ongoing success as an enabling platform for representing and processing volumetric data of natural phenomena. These additions helped solidify OpenVDB as an industry standard that supports continued innovation in visual effects.
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Oliver Castle and Marcus Schoo for the design and engineering of the Atlas, and Keith Lackey for the prototyping and early development of the Atlas. Atlas’ scene identification and evaluation framework enables the integration of multiple digital content creation tools into a coherent pipeline. The plugin architecture and efficient evaluation engine ensure consistent representation from virtual production to lighting.
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To Lucas Miller, Christopher Jon Horvath, Steve LaVietes, and Joe Ardent for the creation of the Alembic Caching and Exchange system. Alembic’s algorithms for storing and retrieving baked, time-sampled data enable highly efficient caching in the digital production line and sharing of scenes across facilities. Alembic, an open source interchange library, has been widely adopted by major software vendors and production studios.
Science and Engineering Awards (Academy Plaques)
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Charles Q. Robinson, Nicolas Tsingos, Christophe Chabanne, Mark Vinton and the Cinema Audio Group team of software, hardware and applications engineers at Dolby Laboratories for the creation of the Dolby Atmos Cinema Sound System. Dolby Atmos has become an industry standard in creating object-based cinema audio content and delivers a world-class, immersive audio experience for theater audiences.
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Steve Read and Barry Silverstein for their contributions to the design and development of the IMAX Prismless Laser Projector. Using a new optical mirror system, the IMAX Prism-Free Laser Projector removes prisms from the laser light path to create the high brightness and contrast required for IMAX theater presentation.
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To Peter Janssens, Goran Stojmenovik and Wouter D’Oosterlinck for the design and development of the Barco RGB Laser Projector. The Barco RGB Laser Projector’s new, modular design with a built-in integrated laser light source produces flicker-free, uniform image fields with improved contrast and brightness, enabling a widely adopted upgrade path from xenon to laser presentation without the need for modifications to the screen or projection cabinet of existing theaters. scheme.
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Michael Perkins, Gerwin Damberg, Trevor Davies and Martin J. Richards for the design and development of the Christie E3LH Dolby Vision Cinema Projection System, implemented in collaboration with the Dolby Cinema and Christie Digital engineering teams. The Christie E3LH Dolby Vision Cinema Projection System uses a new dual modulation technique that uses cascading DLP chips in conjunction with an advanced laser optical path, enabling high dynamic range theatrical presentation.
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To Ken Museth, Peter Cucka and Mihai Aldén for the creation of OpenVDB and its continued impact on the motion picture industry. For over a decade, OpenVDB’s core voxel data structures, programming interface, file format, and rich tools for data manipulation remain the standard for efficiently representing complex volumetric effects such as water, fire, and smoke.
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To Jaden Oh for the concept and development of the Marvelous Designer clothing creation system. Marvelous Designer took a pattern-based approach to digital costume making, combining design and visualization and providing a virtual analogy to physical tailoring. Under the guidance of Jaden Oh, the team of engineers, user experience designers, and 3D designers at CLO Virtual Fashion helped improve the quality of look and movement in digital wardrobe creations.
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To F. Sebastian Grassia, Alex Mohr, Sunya Boonyatera, Brett Levin and Jeremy Cowles for the design and engineering of Pixar’s Universal Scene Description. USD is the first open source scene definition framework that can accommodate the full scope of the production workflow across various studio pipelines. Its solid engineering and mature design are exemplified by its versatile layering system and high-performance case file format. The widespread adoption of USD has made it a de facto exchange format of 3D scenes, enabling harmony and collaboration in the motion picture industry. The Academy preserves our cinema history and offers honest and powerful programs about the past, present and future of cinema. In all its initiatives, the Academy connects global audiences – its members, the film industry and film fans – through their shared passion for making and watching films.
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