American Cinematographer - May 2006 - 61

Opposite: Sci-Tech Award recipients
pose with the ceremony's host, actress
Rachel McAdams (front row, center)
after the black-tie
Front

row

presentation dinner.

(left to right): Sci-Tech

Awards Committee Chair Richard

Edlund, ASC; Gary Demos; McAdams;
Don Hall; Academy President Sid
Ganis. Second

row

(left to right): Dave

Sherwin, Scott Leva, Ed Catmull, Gary

Thieltges, Lawrence Frost, Michael
Kass, Andrew Witkin, David Baraff,
Michael Sorenson, Tony DeRose,
Harold

Rattray, Yuriy Popovsky. Third

(left to right): Anatoliy Kokush,
Terry Claborn, Alex MacDonald, J.
row

Walt

Adamczyk, Alvah Miller, Lev

Yevstratov, Hildegard Ebbesmeier,

Vasiliy Orlov, George Peters, Tim
Reynolds, Mark Chapman, Demetri
Terzopoulos, Michael Anderer. Back
row (left to right): Oleksiy Zolotarov,
David Grober, Frank Fletcher, Steve

Garlick, Bill Hogue, Jos Stam, Garrett
Brown, Matt Davis, John Platt, Tim
Drnec, Udo Schauss. This page: ASC
associate member

Gary Demos

receives his Oscar from host

McAdams, and later poses for a photo
with the actress.

Gordon E.

Sawyer Award

Established

in

1981,

the

Sawyer Award is "presented to an
individual in the motion-picture
industry whose technological con¬

future."

tributions have brought credit to

and his work has been celebrated

the
industry." This year Demos became
the 19th recipient of the award,
which is given in the form of an
Oscar statuette. Several weeks after

the ceremony,

he described the
evening as an "absolutely fantastic"
experience, adding, "the Academy
really knows how to put on a big todo to make you feel appreciated."
A member of the Academy's
visual-effects branch since 2003,
Demos

serves

on

the

Sci-Tech

Awards Committee. He is also

member of the ASC

a

Technology

Committee and chairs its Advanced-

AMocPuSrft.esy
Phot s

throughout his extended career, and
has always been looking to the

Imaging Systems Subcommittee.
Demos has spent more than three
decades exploring scientific issues
that placed him well ahead of
the industry's technical curve.
According to Academy president Sid

Demos and his achievements
are

well known

several

to

technical insiders,
at

prior Sci-Tech ceremonies.

1984, he
Scientific and

In

received his first

Engineering Award
(with John Whitney Jr.) for the
practical simulation of motion-pic¬
ture photography by means of com¬
puter-generated images. A decade
later, he earned

a

second Scientific

and

Engineering Award (with Dan
Cameron, David DiFrancesco, Gary
Starkweather and Scott Squires) for
his groundbreaking work in the
field of film input scanning. In 1995,
the Academy honored him once
again with a Technical Achievement
Award (with David Ruhoff, Dan
Cameron and Michelle

Feraud) for

his contribution to the creation of

the

Ganis, "He's been involved in many

Digital Productions Digital Film
Compositing System.
Demos began studying com¬
puters while he was a college stu¬

different

dent

scientific

disciplines

at

CalTech in 1970, when

com-

American

Cinematographer 57
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