Sci Tech Awards Hosts Miles Teller and Margo Robbie. Credit: Michael Yada / ©A.M.P.A.S.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the Scientific and Technical Achievement (Sci-Tech) Awards Saturday night, February 7, 2015, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.
The Sci-Tech Awards are given to recognize the original scientific and technical developments that result in significant improvements in motion picture production and exhibition. The awards themselves are comprised of special plaques, Academy plaques, and Academy Certificates, with two actual Oscar statuettes handed out for the top honors of the evening.
The event was hosted by Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Miles Teller (Whiplash). David W. Gray and Dr. Larry Hornbeck were among the men and woman honored during the ceremony. Gray received the Gordon E. Saywer Award, which is presented as an actual Oscar statue. The award is “given to an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.” Hornbeck was awarded the other actual Oscar statue of the evening – the Academy Award of Merit, for his invention of digital micromirror technology.
Portions of the Sci-Tech Awards will air during during the 87th Annual Academy Awards telecast on February 22, 2015.
The Complete List of Winners:
Gordon E. Sawyer Award (Oscar Statuette)
David W. Gray
Given to an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.
Academy Award of Merit (Oscar Statuette)
Dr. Larry Hornbeck
For the invention of digital micromirror technology as used in DLP Cinema projection.
Academy Award of Commendation (Special Plaque)
Steven Tiffen, Jeff Cohen, and Michael Fecik
For their pioneering work in developing dye-based filters that reduce IR contamination when neutral density filters are used with digital cameras.
Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Science and Technology Council Chairman Richard Edlund. Credit: Michael Yada / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate)
Peter Braun
for the concept and development of the MAT-Towercam Twin Peek, a portable, remote-controlled, telescoping column that smoothly positions a camera up to 24 feet vertically.
Robert Nagle and Allan Padelford
for The Biscuit Jr. self-propelled, high-performance, drivable camera and vehicle platform.
Harold Milligan, Steven Krycho, and Reiner Doetzkies
For the implementation engineering in the development of the Texas Instruments DLP Cinema digital projection technology.
Cary Phillips, Nicolas Popravka, Philip Peterson, and Colette Mullenhoff
For the architecture, development and creation of the artist-driven interface of the ILM Shape Sculpting System.
Tim Cotter, Roger van der Laan, Ken Pearce, and Greg LaSalle
For the innovative design and development of the MOVA Facial Performance Capture system.
Dan Piponi, Kim Libreri, and George Borshukov
For their pioneering work in the development of Universal Capture at ESC Entertainment.
Marco Revelant, Alasdair Coull, and Shane Cooper
To Revelant for the original concepts and artistic vision, and to Coull and Cooper for the original architectural and engineering design, of the Barbershop hair grooming system at Weta Digital.
Michael Sechrest, Chris King, and Greg Croft
To Sechrest for the modeling design and implementation, King for the real-time interactive engineering, and Croft for the user interface design and implementation of SpeedTree Cinema.
Scott Peterson, Jeff Budsberg, and Jonathan Gibbs
For the design and implementation of the DreamWorks Animation Foliage System.
Erwin Coumans, Nafees Bin Zafar, and Stephen Marshall
To Coumans for the development of the Bullet physics library, and to Zafar and Marshall for the separate development of two large-scale destruction simulation systems based on Bullet.
Brice Criswell and Ron Fedkiw
For the development of the ILM PhysBAM Destruction System.
Ben Cole, Eric Parker, and James O’Brien
To Cole for the design of the Kali Destruction System, to Parker for the development of the Digital Molecular Matter toolkit, and to O’Brien for his influential research on the finite element methods that served as a foundation for these tools.
Magnus Wrenninge
For leading the design and development of Field3D.
Robert Bridson
For early conceptualization of sparse-tiled voxel data structures and their application to modeling and simulation.
Ken Museth, Peter Cucka, and Mihai Aldén
For the creation of OpenVDB.
Allan Padelford (left) and Robert Nagle (right). Credit: Michael Yada / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Scientific and Engineering Awards (Academy Plaque)
lain Neil and André de Winter
To Neil for the optical design, and to de Winter for the mechanical design, of the Leica Summilux-C series of lenses.
Brad Walker, D. Scott Dewald, Bill Werner, Greg Pettitt, and Frank Poradish
For their contributions furthering the design and refinement of the Texas Instruments DLP Cinema projection technology, whose high level of performance enabled color-accurate digital intermediate preview and motion picture theatrical presentation.
Ichiro Tsutsui, Masahiro Take, Mitsuyasu Tamura, and Mitsuru Asano
For the development of the Sony BVM-E Series Professional OLED Master Monitor.
John Frederick, Bob Myers, Karl Rasche and Tom Lianza
For the development of the HP DreamColor LP2480zx Professional Display
——————————————————————————
Click here to view the complete list of nominees for the 2015 Oscars.
And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter our 5th Annual Oscar Pool! The winner will receive an Oscar Pack of Blu-rays and bragging rights!
The 87th Oscars, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. They will be televised live on ABC at 7 pm EST/4 pm PST.
Emily Schmitt | Managing Editor
