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Digital Oscars Awarded
prostoalex writes "MSNBC covers the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards, which generally take place before the Oscars, but recognize companies and individuals that helped the advancement of film-making with technology. This year's winners include DigiDesign, the creator of Pro Tools audio package, Bill Tondreau from Kuper Controls for robotic camera systems and Peter D. Parks, with a lifetime achievement award."
in Hex or Binary?
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Too bad they make no mention of the rendering software(s), etc. used in films like LOTR and ROTK. Many times its the softwares that drive the new hardware discoveries and advancements as was the case with the movie Titanic. And with all the Linux rendering farms being used these days, I'd expect at least some mention of the softwares powering them.
Jennifer Garner hosts to highlight the technological achievments that make her look better on camera. It's just a simple thanks that she has to give due to her lack of acting ability (have you seen Daredevil)
We all know that the real winners were all the geeks that got to hang with Jennifer Garner for the night. Yuh!
He most certainly contributed to technology in films!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It is a shame really that these people do not receive more recognition for their work. Their contribution is in some cases ground breaking. But since it is not "interesting" they do not get any air time.
As anybody who uses Pro Tools will tell you, it is the end all be all when it comes to the audio spectrum. They defenitely deserved the recognition. And regardless of what you may think of LotR, you have to give props to the Massive project.
Kudos to you.
Has Industrial Light & Magic produced anything to qualify for these awards? Or Pixar?
And the winner is.... the guy who managed to get this article on /.
There are certainly some achievments of technology in movies that should be included in the Digital Oscar Hall of Fame 1. HAL 2. WOPR (WarGames) 3. the designers for Terminator 3 (Terminator boobies are now one of my top fantasies)
Among those honored with plaques were Kinoton GmbH for its high-speed studio projector; a team from Eastman Kodak Co. for developing an anti-static layer on film that survives processing; Stephen Regelous for developing Massive, the software used to create tens of thousands of warriors for the "Lord of the Rings" battle sequences; and a group of companies for their work in digital audio editing.
Here it is, what little there is
Filmmaking is technological by nature. Many filmmaking technologies are in the realms of mechanical engineering, optics, lighting, chemistry (e.g., film emulsions), model making, etc. I don't think it's very accurate to refer to the Academy Awards for technological achievements as the "Digital Oscars."
the guys from Digidesign deserve recognition - they are terriffic. Met them in 95 in LA at a conference. They were very helpful.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
Okay, digidesign has done some neat things recently, but the most notable are the cool digital control consoles that attach to software-based workstations.
Digi was once widely recognized for building hardware that made mid-90's computers capable of audio feats that would not have been otherwise possible, but these days, there are a lot of other options, and protools is no longer an obvious choice over other software such as cubase sx, which has been very popular among smaller studios.
I suppose the academy is really not very interested in the cool developments that have made it easier for the indie movie scene, such as the terrific, and very affordable Behringer Truth monitors, and small digital mixers that cost less than $2k, but sound better and buss signals easier than the $10k mixers of yester-year.
I really think the coolest technical innovations in the movie and audio community recently have all been the ones that have made it easier to run a small studio out of your garage. I think that movement should be recognized a bit more by the academy.
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Henrik Wann Jensen (one of the winners) is a professor at UCSD. He has had numerous contributions to the area of Computer Graphics, including Photon Maps, Subsurface Scatterring, etc. Some of the animations and images of of his work are trully amazing.
Don't Panic
So shut your mouth already fool!
Why no Bill Gates? He created a revolution in computer technology.
They ARE Oscars, just not the glitzy ones that the media covers. Sometimes software wins, sometimes hardware (e.g. innovative camera systems, mounts, sound equipment etcetera).
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
for Best Performance in an Online Feature.
Are they any film people out there who could point out which are the better books on film technology (not in the CGI sense) and techniques? I've been curious recently as to the sound technologies and techniques used, and also the mechanical engineering used.
Is that like a Big Mac with a huge cock?
Seriously, is there any other industry that does as much back-patting and self-stroking as Hollywood?
These are some seriously affirmation-hungry groups that just live for the moment to tell everyone "what a great opportunity it was to work with such a great professional" blah blah.
Soon they're going to have a hard time fitting any new "content" in between the award shows.
The story doesn't list everybody who was honoured, but I'm guessing Andy Serkis got missed again. Surely he contributed toward digital effects in film in numerous ways over the last few years, yet consistently gets overlooked. Sure, he isn't a techie, and he didn't invent the concepts as such, but he's the only actor who has taken a digital character to such extreme lengths?
ProTools has always had equal or superior alternatives. The bottom line is that ProTools, for whatever reason, is the standard. You can go into 99 percent of the studios/post prod. sites. It's telling that if you want work as an audio engineer, at least in music production, knowledge of ProTools is the rule, Cubase and the like are the exception.