Sci-Tech Oscars Honorees range from lasers and roof pods to great designers and OpenVDB

Let the techies be rewarded.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today unveiled the 16 sci-tech achievements that will be honored at next month’s annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony. View the full list below.

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Achievements highlighted for Sci-Technical Awards do not have to have been developed and introduced over a period of time, but must demonstrate a proven track record of contributing significant value to the filmmaking process, according to AMPAS.

“Each year, a global group of technology professionals and experts set out to explore the extraordinary tools and techniques used in filmmaking,” said Barbara Ford Grant, chair of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, which oversees on the screening of films. the awards. “This year we are honoring 16 technologies for their exceptional contributions to the way we create and enhance the cinematic experience, from the safe execution of special effects on set to new levels of fidelity image presentation and immersive sound to open frameworks that allow artists to share their digital creations seamlessly across different software and studios. These remarkable achievements in the arts and sciences of filmmaking have propelled our medium to unprecedented levels of greatness.”

The Sci-Tech Oscar ceremony will take place on Friday, February 23 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Here is the full list of 2024 Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievements, with write-ups via AMPAS:

Technical Achievement Awards (Academy Certificates)

To Bill Beck for his pioneering use of semiconductor lasers for theatrical laser projection systems. Bill Beck’s advocacy and education for the film industry at Laser Light Engines contributed to the transition to laser projection in theatrical exhibitions. To Gregory T. Niven for his pioneering work in the use of laser diodes for theatrical laser projection systems. At Novalux and Necsel, Gregory T. Niven demonstrated and refined specifications for laser light sources for theatrical exhibitions, leading the industry’s transition to laser cinema projection technology. To Yoshitaka Nakatsu, Yoji Nagao, Tsuyoshi Hirao, Tomonori Morizumi, and Kazuma Kozuru for their development of laser diodes for theatrical laser projection systems. Yoshitaka Nakatsu, Yoji Nagao, Tsuyoshi Hirao, Tomonori Morizumi and Kazuma Kozuru worked closely with film professionals and manufacturers at Nichia Corporation Laser Diode Division, leading to the development and industrial adoption of blue and green laser modules that produce matching wavelengths and power levels. the specific needs of the cinema market.
To Arnold Peterson and Elia P. Popov for their continued design and engineering, and to John Frazier for the initial concept of the Blind Driver Roof Pod. The roof pod improves the safety, speed and scope of stunt driving, expanding camera placement options while capturing car footage with in-vehicle talent, leading to rapid adoption across the industry.
To Jon G. Belyeu for the design and engineering of Movie Works cable cutters. The unique and resilient design of this range of pyrotechnic cable cutters has made them the method of choice for safe, accurate and reliable release of suspension cables in film production for over thirty years.
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 allows productions to utilize well-known and proven camera raw workflows more efficiently by reducing the storage and bandwidth required for the larger amounts of data from cameras with high photo site counts.
To Jeff Lait, Dan Bailey, and Nick Avramoussis for the continued evolution and expansion of OpenVDB’s feature set. Core technical developments contributed by OpenVDB’s open source community have led to its continued success as a platform for representing and manipulating volumetric data for natural phenomena. These additions have helped make OpenVDB an industry standard that drives continued innovation in visual effects.
To Oliver Castle and Marcus Schoo for the design and engineering of Atlas, and to Keith Lackey for the prototype creation and early development of Atlas. Atlas’ scene description and evaluation framework enables the integration of multiple digital content creation tools into a cohesive production pipeline. The plug-in architecture and efficient evaluation engine ensure consistent rendering from virtual production through lighting.
To Lucas Miller, Christopher Jon Horvath, Steve LaVietes, and Joe Ardent for creating the Alembic Caching and Interchange system. Alembic’s algorithms for storing and retrieving baked, time-sampled data enable highly efficient caching in the digital production pipeline and scene sharing between facilities. As an open-source sharing library, Alembic is widely adopted by major software vendors and production studios.

Scientific and Technical Awards (Academy Plaques)

To Charles Q. Robinson, Nicolas Tsingos, Christophe Chabanne, Mark Vinton and the Cinema Audio Group’s team of software, hardware and implementation engineers at Dolby Laboratories for the creation of the Dolby Atmos Cinema Sound System. Dolby Atmos has become an industry standard for creating object-based cinematic audio content, delivering a premium immersive audio experience for theater audiences.
To 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 Prismless Laser Projector removes prisms from the laser light path to create the high brightness and contrast necessary for IMAX theatrical presentation.
To Peter Janssens, Goran Stojmenovik and Wouter D’Oosterlinck for the design and development of the Barco RGB Laser Projector. The new and modular design of the Barco RGB laser projector with an internally integrated laser light source produces flicker-free, uniform fields of view with improved contrast and brightness, enabling a widely accepted upgrade path from xenon to laser presentation without any modifications to the screen or projection booth necessary to furnish existing theaters.
To 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 between the Dolby Cinema and Christie Digital engineering teams. The Christie E3LH Dolby Vision Cinema Projection System employs a new dual modulation technique that utilizes cascaded DLP chips and an improved optical laser path, enabling high dynamic range theatrical presentations.
To Ken Museth, Peter Cucka and Mihai Aldén for the creation of OpenVDB and its continued impact within the film industry. For more than a decade, OpenVDB’s core voxel data structures, programming interface, file format, and rich data manipulation tools remain the standard for efficiently rendering complex volumetric effects, such as water, fire, and smoke.
To Jaden Oh for the concept and development of the Marvelous Designer clothing creation system. Marvelous Designer introduced a pattern-based approach to digital costume construction, uniting design and visualization and providing a virtual analogy to physical customization. Led by Jaden Oh, CLO Virtual Fashion’s team of engineers, UX designers and 3D designers have helped elevate the quality of look and movement in digital wardrobe creations.
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 description framework that can accommodate the full scope of production workflow across a variety of studio pipelines. The robust technology and mature design are illustrated by the versatile layer system and the high-performance crate file format. The widespread adoption of USD has made it a de facto format for 3D scene exchange, allowing coordination and collaboration within the film industry. collection, the Academy preserves our film history and presents honest and powerful programs about the past, present and future of cinema. Through all initiatives, the Academy connects a global audience – its members, the film industry and film fans – through their shared passion for making and watching films.

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