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Oscar Tech
by Selise Eiseman


Don Hall, MPSE.
Photo courtesy of and © AMPAS

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ (AMPAS) Scientific and Technical Awards (or Sci-Tech Awards, as they are called) began in 1930—almost from the very beginning of the Academy Awards themselves (1927–1928). The difference between the more well-known Oscars for both picture editing and sound and the Sci-Tech Awards representing those categories is that the former recognizes the artistic side of the crafts while the latter honors the individuals or companies who invented the technology used. The Sci-Tech Awards are presented a week or more prior to the Academy Awards.

According to Richard Miller, awards administration director for AMPAS, the early pioneers in sound, for instance, received awards for inventing the speakers, amplifier systems, consoles and microphones, while the individuals who won the Academy Awards for Best Achievement in Sound utilized that equipment to create, edit and mix the sound.
The president of the Academy selects a chairman, who chooses a Sci-Tech Awards committee of over 40 members who represent experts in various disciplines of technology. “There are some sound people, computer people, physical effects people, laboratory people, projection people and individuals from all different aspects of the industry,” Miller says. According to the academy’s regulations, entries submitted should consist of “devices, methods, formulas and/or inventions of special and outstanding value to the arts and sciences of motion pictures and employed in the motion picture industry during the awards year.” They are entered from all over the world and the committee reviews them annually.
The first criterion in the selection process is that the invention has to be proven by use in the industry. “The awards are not presented to promote some great new idea that just came out so the inventor can use an Academy Award to promote it,” explains Miller. “What if it fails? A lot of people don’t understand that. They all claim that theirs is the greatest new technology. We tell them to bring it to us next year when they can prove it.”

Choosing Sci-Tech Award winners is a long process that begins with meetings in September, and each item that is deemed relevant is researched, according to Miller. A surrogate group of at least four members of the committee then goes out and talks to the entrants to learn all the details, the history of the development and who invented it. The group is responsible for discovering if there are any other people with the same technology. “We don’t give an award to one person just because they entered, and ignore someone who doesn’t enter and wasn’t considered,” Miller explains.

Often it is determined that an invention is a great product, but that someone else invented it, so the committee will go back and give the inventor an award for pioneering the early work on the development of the technology. Demonstrations are held in October of those inventions that are portable enough to bring to the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The committee examines the inventions and watches demonstrations before filing reports. After intensive study and debate decisions are reached as to who should receive the awards, for what they should receive it and what level of award they should receive.

There are three levels of Sci-Tech Awards. The top level is the Academy Award of Merit, which is an Oscar; the second is the Scientific and Engi-neering Award, which is a plaque; and the third is the Technical Achievement Award, which is a certificate. Very few Oscars are handed out at the Sci-Tech Awards. Basic-ally, that level is only awarded for technological advancements that actually change the way movies are made, according to Miller.

He cites an example of a Sci-Tech achievement that is Oscar-worthy as “a tool that everybody uses on every movie and still does.” For instance, Digidesign won the Academy Award of Merit in 2003 for the development of the ProTools digital audio workstation.

“Scientific and Engineering Awards are usually those things that involve some fairly complicated type of engineering, like film cameras, which are not a simple engineering job,” Miller explains. Both the Avid and Lightworks editing systems received Scientific and Engineering Award plaques in 1994. Four years later, Avid Technology, Inc., was given the Academy Award of Merit––an Oscar––for the concept, system design and engineering of the Avid Film Composer.

Describing the inventions considered for the Sci-Tech Awards, Miller says, “Some people will come in with a new tool that can, say, light a set, and it won’t get the actors all hot and sweaty. It’s a great thing, but it isn’t industry-changing. If it’s particularly great, they will receive certificates.” Among this year’s recipients of the Technical Achievement Award are five developers at Technicolor for their design, engineering and implementation of the Technicolor Real Time Answer Print System, which is a “system to provide a method by which filmmakers can preview real-time color corrections using actual film prints, reducing both the turn-around time and the number of reprints required,” according to the academy website.

In addition to the three levels of Sci-Tech Awards, there are also two honorary technical awards given: the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, which is an Oscar statuette, and the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation.

The Sawyer Award, named for Gordon E. Sawyer, who was the former head of the Sound Department at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios and an active member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee from 1936 to 1977, is awarded to an individual “whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.” Past winners in the sound area included John O. Aalberg, Dr. John G. Frayne, Frederic C. Hynes, Stefan Kudelski and Donald C. Rogers.

The Bonner Medal is named in honor of sound engineer John A. Bonner, who served as an academy governor representing the sound branch and was director of special projects at Warner Hollywood Studios until his death in 1996. It is awarded “in appreciation for outstanding service and dedication in upholding the high standards of the academy.”
This year’s winner is retired Guild Sound Editor Don Hall, MPSE, currently a senior lecturer at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television. “Don has been ubiquitous around the academy at anything relating to technology…and especially to the art and science of motion picture sound––serving on the board of governors, hosting public programs, attending committee meetings of all sorts and personally supporting the Academy Foundation’s many programs,” says AMPAS president Sid Ganis.
The 2006 Scientific-Technical Awards were held February 18 in Hollywood.

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