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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."
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.
- EricMakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
The problem with the credit is it can belong to more than just the people getting named.
/ tech/
3 Fairlight Instruments guys got awards too. One of them, Chris Alfred carried on from the work I (and a Chris Prall) did, but we don't get a mention... and we started it..
See:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/adriansbruce
It is too bad, but it will continue to be like this (as an afterthought or, more aptly, foreword) because movies are regarded primarily as "artistic achievements", when they are as much technical achievements.
/. crowd) have to admit some technical achievements are much more impressive than the acting ones.
When people watch ROTK's technically amazing battle scenes the instinctive thought is how beautiful and lifelike and well-conceived the battle is and not necessarily how it was done (something most people don't give a thought to). It's all "Those Oliphants are kick-ass" and not "I wonder how many polygons or what sort of wireframe", etc.
So people applaud Jackson and perhaps the writers for conceiving the battle scenes so beautifully rather than the tech artists and technology for rendering it (as important, but not "artistic"). It's because (and perhaps naturally so) we are a culture so obsessed with entertainment that the acting, etc. are the primary awards. I mean, pretending to be an older woman still with some sex appeal (Diane Keaton) is more of a headliner award than rendering those battle scenes? Perhaps, and perhaps not, but you (and especially the
It's a shame because technology's purpose is really to hide itself, to absolutely convince you that it isn't there, that the movie is a whole experience, and so it often gets disregarded as people become immersed in the wonder of it. Despite what everybody says about actors' purposes being to hide themselves and disappear (and likewise hide themselves in a similar manner as technology) I'm not sure if that's actually the goal. Actors are intent on getting noticed and crying out and reacting with the magnitude of their emotion. To be seen. In fact, if you see some older movies (and to some extent modern movies) the acting ("method acting"? IANAA) is very over-wrought with glares and articulated gestures and the like, not to convince you that it's real, but to convince you of the emotion. I.e. if I am angry I would make this subtle gesture, but since I want you to know I am angry, I'll make this blatant gesture.
Controversial statement: Special effects are more about acting than acting.
"The greatest trick the devil ever did was convincing everybody that he didn't exist." Thrown in as a gratuitous Usual Suspects quote.
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?
Not quite. Anyone truly involved with the audio industry can tell you that while Pro Tools is amazing and many arguments can be made that it's the best DAW out there, it is far from being the end all be all. Pro Tools has one or two major flaws. Programs like Logic are arguably just as good or better and programs like Nuendo are catching up quickly. I love Pro Tools. I own it and I work in more then one studio that uses it, I believe it's the best, but its far from perfect.
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
She's OK. I don't think one should base one's opinion of an actor on a single film. There's a lot between the actor's performance and you: script, direction, editing, cinematography, music. Even great actors can be made to look really stupid, and actors with no range can look good for a single movie with the right director (Jack Nicholson, anybody?)
I've seen her in many other things. She doesn't have a vast range, but she's competent and pretty and she cries well on cue. She's got good charisma; that is, she is very interesting to watch. Not all pretty women are interesting to look at.
Most importantly, she's "game". She'll take a crack at any language, no matter how badly, and she clearly works hard to make the fights look good.
They must have been very proud of the work she did with the sai on Daredevil, since they worked it into an episode of Alias. Silly, but pretty.
Probably dumb of me to post anything like this to Slashdot, but I'm an actor and a director and I like to think I know about this stuff.