Acad sets scientific, tech honors

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced today that eight scientific and technical achievements will be honored at the annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation, to be held Feb. 11 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Achievements receiving Scientific and Technical Awards need not have been developed and introduced during 2011. Rather, the achievements must demonstrate a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures. The Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievements will go to 28 individuals in eight different categories. An Academy Award of Merit (Oscar statuette) will go to Franz Kraus, Johannes Steurer and Wolfgang Riedel for the design and development of the Arrilaser Film Recorder. A technical achievement award (Academy certificate) will go to Andrew Clinton and Mark Elendt for the invention and integration of micro-voxels in the Mantra software. A scientific and engineering award (Academy plaque) will go to Radu Corlan, Andy Jantzen, Petru Pop and Richard Toftness for the design and engineering of the Phantom family of high-speed cameras for motion-picture production; Dr. Juergen Noffke for the optical design and Uwe Weber for the mechanical design of the Arri Zeiss Master Prime Lenses for motion picture photography; Michael Lewis, Greg Marsden, Raigo Alas and Michael Vellekoop for the concept, design and implementation of the Pictorvision Eclipse, an electronically stabilized aerial camera platform; E.F. "Bob" Nettmann for the concept and system architecture, Michael Sayovitz for the electronic packaging and integration, Brad Fritzel for the electronic engineering and Fred Miller for the mechanical engineering of the Stab-C Classic, Super-G and Stab-C Compact stabilizing heads; John D. Lowry, Ian Caven, Ian Godin, Kimball Thurston and Tim Connolly for the development of a unique and efficient system for the reduction of noise and other artifacts, thereby providing high-quality images required by the filmmaking process; Fujifilm Corp., Hideyuki Shirai, Dr. Katsuhisa Oozeki and Hiroshi Hirano for the design and development of the Fujifilm black-and-white recording film Eterna-RDS 4791 for use in the archival preservation of film and digital images. Highlights of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be included in the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 26. Contact Christy Grosz at christy.grosz@variety.com