Computer Graphics World

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

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■ ■ ■ ■ Technology Each February, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences acknowledges the science half of the organization’s name by presenting its Science and Tech- nical Awards. T is year, the Academy singled out 22 people who contributed to 10 SciTech awards. Among them, Tony Clark, Alan Rogers, Neil Wilson, and Rory McGregor of Rising Sun for developing CineSync; Mark Sagar of Weta Digital for his early and continuing work on facial motion capture; and Arnauld Lamorlette now of T e Bakery and Eric Tabellion of PDI/DreamWorks for their work on global illumination at PDI. Ten years ago, Clark began looking for a better method of submitting shots to visual eff ects supervisor Jeff Okun than by mailing Betacam tapes from Rising Sun in Aus- tralia to Los Angeles. Sagar was trying to put virtual humans on the Internet. And at PDI/DreamWorks, Lamorlette and Tabellion were proving to ESC Entertainment that they could create photorealistic images by using global illumination to light a test shot for T e Matrix Reloaded. T e technology these men were working on then has led to fundamental changes in the visual eff ects industry today in the case of CineSync; to last year’s astonishing facial animation in Avatar and, now, to mind-blowing areas of new research for Mark Sagar; to new ways for artists to work at PDI; and to a new product scheduled for release this year from T e Bakery. Collaboration Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certifi cate) to Tony Clark, Alan Rogers, Neil Wilson, and Rory McGregor for “the software design and continued development of CineSync, a tool for remote collaboration and review of visual eff ects. Easy to use, CineSync has become a widely accepted solution for remote production collaboration.” In 2000, Rising Sun, a postproduction studio in Adelaide, Australia, had landed work for its biggest-budget fi lm to date, Warner Bros.’ Red Planet. “We were a long way away,” says founder and visual eff ects supervisor Tony Clark. “It takes about fi ve days to ship Betacam SPs. So we had begun sending QuickTimes to Jeff Okun, the overall visual eff ects supervisor.” Science Meets Art The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences honors computer graphics professionals with its Science and Technical Awards By Barbara Robertson 18 January/February 2011

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