American Cinematographer - May 2009 - 64

Technical Knockouts was Beauty and the Beast (1991), which even featured a 3-D rendered environment (the ballroom scene). “Today, all animated films are environments like that, but at the time, it was breathtaking,” says Kimball. “CAPS was not 3-D in nature, but we built the hooks so the 3-D pieces could be put in cleanly. I’m very proud of the fact that we were able to build CAPS to take advantage of new technology we could envision and give it the flexibility to handle many artistic and technical challenges over its 15-year life.” Kimball became chief technologist for Disney Feature Animation and, later, director of digital production for the Disney Co. He also was an active participant in the development of the Digital Cinema Initiatives, the technical specifications for the packaging, distribution and presentation of digital motion pictures. “DCI really fostered an industry-wide collaboration,” he notes. “These were informed decisions made with the help of the best minds in our industry. We came up with specs that could be implemented in the nearterm but hold the flexibility to push the art form to new levels as technology advances.” Here are the other awards presented by the Academy Sci-Tech Committee this year: variable focus and specular reflectors, the superior optical and mechanical design of this lighting fixture allows it to operate at 18,000 watts, producing unsurpassed light quality while its innovative cooling system keeps the housing safe to touch. Jacques Delacoux for the concept and electronic design and Alexandre Leuchter for the software and electronic design of Transvideo video-assist monitors. Using color LCD screens, the monitors provide flicker-free video-assist bright enough for use in sunlight and have become a ubiquitous tool in both spherical and anamorphic cinematography. Bruno Coumert and Jacques Debize for the optical design and Dominique Chervin and Christophe Reboulet for the mechanical design of the Angenieux 15-40mm and 28-76mm zoom lenses. With focus and zoom functions that can be easily controlled by either the operator or focus puller while filming handheld, these lightweight zoom lenses demonstrate a very high degree of engineering, supporting ease of use and quick interchange. Hylén thanks his peers while accepting the Technical Achievement Award for his role in developing the Hylén Lens System. duction? No one knew how big it was going to be, and it scared me. Each movie’s data was on the scale of what NASA dealt with coming back from Mars planetary missions or the moon.” Part of Kimball’s challenge was to create a structure that would enable artists to bring up an image and manipulate it, while making it possible to track who had changed the image and how they’d changed it. Because Disney always had multiple animation projects in the works simultaneously, it was also necessary that the file structure specify which project, sequence and scene an image was from. CAPS made its debut in a scene in The Little Mermaid (1989), and The Rescuers Down Under (1990) became the first feature made entirely with the system. Kimball recalls that when Rescuers came out, it was clear that something had changed; the film featured many shots with multi-plane effects, which would have been impossible without CAPS. “Rescuers was not a gigantic commercial success, but it holds a place as a benchmark in moving the animation process forward,” he says. The first film that really took full advantage of the CAPS system SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING AWARDS (Academy plaques) These honors are presented for achievements that exhibit a high level of engineering and are important to the progress of the industry. Erwin Melzner for the overall concept (including the optical and cooling systems), Volker Schumacher for the optical design and Timo Müller for the mechanical design of the ArriMax 18/12 lighting fixture. With its choice of TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS (Academy Certificates) These honors are presented for accomplishments that contribute to the progress of the industry. Steve Hylén for the concept and his continued leadership in the further development of the Hylén Lens System. When attached to a film or digital production camera, this versatile aerial-image device can produce a wide variety of optical effects interactively, on set and in real time without postproduction image manipulation. I 64 May 2009

American Cinematographer - May 2009

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