American Cinematographer - May 2006 - 64

Inventive Endeavors
not

Guild, the Motion Picture Sound

Cascade series of

he notes.

Editors and the

cranes.

really recognized as individuals,"
"Any accomplishments or
awards went to sound departments.
I worked closely with [fellow
Academy Governor] Don Rogers in
trying to gain recognition for people
working in the sound community. It
was a hard-fought road, but we pre¬
sented different programs to the
board and got the awards system
approved to the point where it's at

Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers. He
says he always tells his students "it's
not so much about the technology
and how things are done, because
those aspects of the job are everchanging. I try to get them to focus
more on the whole thought process
of how sound can be used to help
tell stories."

now."

The

During his five-decade
Hall has worked
as

The

The

Bridge

French

on

on

career,

such films

the River Kwai,

Connection,

Young

Scientific

Engineering Awards
tributions

Clouds. He also served

with

postproduction at The Walt Disney

evening's honor

a

and

Technical

Achievement Awards for their
is

the head of

of the

received

orees

Frankenstein and A Walk in the
as

rest

con¬

the

industry. Following
recipients, along
descriptions of their achieve¬
to

list of award

ments.

Studios, Quinn-Martin Productions
and

Spelling Goldberg Productions
establishing Don Hall
Productions,
an
independent
sound-editing company. "I basically

SCIENTIFIC AND

before

ENGINEERING AWARDS

the whole evolution of sound,
from optical to mag film and digital.

To David Grober for the

We

have

opportunities now to
accomplish things that we never
would have been able to accomplish
before. From a technical standpoint,
I think the most significant advances
have been made in editing systems
and reproduction systems, which
now allow us to
reproduce the
whole dynamic range of sound
without having our hands tied by a
small bandwidth."
Asked to
ect,

name a

con¬

and mechanical design and

Scott Lewallen for the electronic and

software

Horizon camera-stabilization head.

Perfect Horizon effectively neu¬
tralizes

the

extraneous

encountered in boats,
snowmobiles
the

favorite proj¬

Hall cites Young Frankenstein,

the time, and he has the sort of mind
where

nothing is ever set. Whenever
got on the mixing stage, he
would always leave the Foley stage or
we

the

recording stage open, and as we
got ideas, we would just go over
there, record them and add them
into the mix."

Currently a senior lecturer at
University of Southern

motion

camera

cars,

other vehicles,

leaving
pan/tilt head and camera stable
or

and level with the horizon.

Anatoliy Kokush, Yuriy
Popovsky and Oleksiy Zolotarov for
the concept and development of the
Russian Arm gyrostabilized camera
crane and the
Flight Head.
The Russian Arm and Flight
Head opened new possibilities for
filmmakers. With the ability to be
mounted on the roof of almost any
car, this remotely operated crane and
camera head can move smoothly in a
360° circle around the car, even

a

member of

the Motion Picture Film Editors

60

May 2006

and

To Garrett Brown for the

original concept of the Skycam
flying-camera system, the first use of
3-D volumetric cable technology for
motion-picture cinematography.
In creating the first remotecontrolled, cable-supported flyingcamera
system, Garrett Brown's pio¬
neering efforts have influenced all
subsequent development in this area
of technology.
To

David Baraff, Michael

pioneering work in physically based
computer-generated techniques
used

while

simulate realistic cloth in

to

motion

pictures.

Their 1998 paper

titled "Large

Steps in Cloth Simulation" was a
seminal work, providing the key in
demonstrating to the industry that
the calculations necessary to simulate
realistic, complex cloth could be
achieved efficiently and robustly.
Their work provided the conceptual

foundation for many cloth simulation
systems in use today.
To

Laurie

Frost,

Peter

Hannan and Richard Loncraine for

the

development of the remote cam¬

era

head known
In

for

as

the Hot-Head.

of a
brought
the possibility ofsafe, remotely operat¬
ed shots to every filmmaker.
use

over a quarter

century, the Hot-Head has

TECHNICAL

it is

ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

actors,

(Academy Certificates)

being driven at high speeds by
creating heretofore-impossible
perspectives.

California School of Cinema and

Television, Hall is also

lightweight structure ofthe
Traveling Cascade
Cranes enables the filmmaker to
achieve heights of up to 70', allowing
for the placement of the camera in
otherwise impossible locations.

design of the Perfect

To

"because I got to work with Mel
Brooks. He got these wild ideas all

the

cept

The

Cascade

Kass and Andrew Witkin for their

(Academy Plaques)

saw

motion-picture

To

Anatoliy Kokush for the
concept and development of the

To Gary Thieltges for the
design and development of the
remotely operated, lightweight cam-
American Cinematographer - May 2006

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