Quentin Tarantino, best original screenplay nominee for his film "Django Unchained", poses on the red carpet with his girlfriend Lianne Spiderbaby as they arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Barbra Streisand performs the song "Memories" from the film "The Way We Were" at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
Actress Helena Bonham Carter, left, and director Tim Burton arrive at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles.
Photo by Todd Williamson
Former CIA agent Tony Mendez, on whom the film "Argo" is based, arrives with this wife Jonna at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
Robbie Robertson Canadian singer-songwriter and guest at the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscars Party in West Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Danny Moloshok
Actors Michael Douglas, left, and Catherine Zeta-Jones arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles.
Photo by John Shearer
Actor Bryan Cranston from the film "Argo" and his wife Robin Dearden arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck shows off one of his Oscars food creations at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
David Silverman, director nominated for Animated Short Film for "Maggie Simpson In The Longest Daycare" and Matt Groening (R) arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013
Photo by Adrees Latif
Singer and Oscar telecast performer Adele, nominated for the song "Skyfall" from the James Bond film "Skyfall," wearing Jenny Packham dress and Lorraine Schwartz jewelry arrives at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
Christoph Waltz, best supporting actor nominee for his role in "Django Unchained", poses on the red carpet with his wife Judith Holste as they arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Two-time Academy Award winner Jane Fonda, wearing a yellow Versace gown, arrives at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Tommy Lee Jones, best supporting actor nominee for his role in "Lincoln", and his wife Dawn Laurel-Jones arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Halle Berry (R) poses with Quenzhane Wallis (L), best actress nominee for her role in "Beasts of the Southern Wild", at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013
Photo by Adrees Latif
Oscar host Seth MacFarlane watches William Shatner on a screen during the opening segment of the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
George Clooney, producer of best picture nominated film "Argo", arrives at the 85th Academy Awards with his girlfriend Stacy Keibler, in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Anne Hathaway, best supporting actress nominee for her role in "Les Miserables" arrives at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013
Photo by Adrees Latif
Oscar host Seth MacFarlane (C) performs a dance segment with actors Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe (R) at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
(L - R) Acrtess Kate Capshaw, her husband Steven Spielberg (2nd L), best director nominee for his film "Lincoln," British actor Daniel Day-Lewis (2nd R), best actor nominee for his role in "Lincoln" and his wife Rebecca Miller (R) pose at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
Producer Megan Ellison (L) and an unidentified partner arrive at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Lucas Jackson
Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman pose with their award for best animated feature film for "Brave" backstage at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mike Blake
Actor Jack Nicholson presents the award for best motion picture at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
Claudio Miranda poses with the Oscar for Best Cinematography for "Life of Pi" backstage at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 24, 2013.
Photo by Mike Blake
Actor Chris Pine, left, and actress Zoe Saldana arrives at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Scientific and Technical Awards at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013.
Photo by Dan Steinberg
A room full of engineers, computer whizzes and technicians brought the crew of the Starship Enterprisedown to Earth for a night at the Sci-Tech Oscars.
Zoe Saldana and Chris Pine hosted the annual awards dinner in which the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences beams its spotlight on the latter half of its name.
"We're truly humbled, by all means, man. We can fly into space because of you," Saldana told honorees at the event Saturday night.
The "Avatar" and "Star Trek" star pumped her fist and shouted "WETA!" before the first of two teams from the New Zealand-based special effects house, which worked on "Avatar," took the stage.
Pine and Saldana took turns attempting to describe technical accomplishments like "pose space deformation" and "wavelet turbulence." Pine allowed that one software innovation was too complex for "dumb actors" to fully comprehend.
It was a mostly rare brush with Hollywood glitz for the 26 men who received plaques, certificates and one statuette on a stage adorned with four large Oscar statues.
Steve LaVietes, a backend pipeline architect at Sony Pictures Imageworks, said he often had to "dispel the misconceptions of friends and family members about our glamorous lifestyle. Mostly because we sit in the dark typing and drawing diagrams on whiteboards."
"Just for tonight we can let that slide because what's more glamorous than the crew of the Starship Enterprise?" he said. He was being recognized for work on Katana, software used in "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "Paranorman" that allows artists to make changes efficiently to large computer graphics scenes.
Richard Mall, honored for creating the Matthews Max menace arm rig used to place lighting in hard-to-reach spots on sets, choked up after thanking his parents.
"I kind of just built something in my garage," Mall said. "I'm a little nervous because as a key grip for 36 years, if I see a camera in front of me, I'm in the wrong place."
Visual effects supervisor Bill Taylor noted in receiving one of the night's top honors that the green- and blue-screen pioneer Petro Vlahos, a two-time Oscar winner, was near death.
"He created the whole of composite photography as we know it at this time," Taylor said of Vlahos, who he described as a mentor. "Whenever you see Mary Poppins dancing with penguins, when you see Pi in a boat in the middle of the ocean ... you are seeing ... Vlahos' genius at work."
Saldana, who danced to the house band during lulls in the presentation, was the lone woman on stage. Many of the winners noted long hours spent away from families and thanked their wives for support of what Drew Olbrich of PDI/DreamWorks termed "all my geeky endeavors."
Visual effects supervisor Bill Taylor, recipient of the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, arrives at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Richard Edlund, four-time Oscar winner and chair of the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, arrives at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Dr. Philip McLauchlan, Allan Jaenicke, John-Paul Smith, and Ross Shain, Scientific and Engineering Award recipients, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Theodore Kim, Nils Thuerey, Dr. Markus Gross and Doug James, Technical Achievement Award winners, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Matt Cordner, J.P. Lewis, and Nickson Fong, Technical Achievement Award winners, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Simon Clutterbuck, James Jacobs and Dr. Richard Dorling arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Steve LaVietes, Brian Hall, and Jeremy Selan, Technical Achievement Award winners, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Joe Murtha, William Frederick, and Jim Markland, Scientific and Engineering Award recipients, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich, and Daniel Wexler, Technical Achievement Award winners, arrive at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Richard Mall, Technical Achievement Award winner, arrives at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Oscar Statuette recipient Les Zellan, for Cooke Optics Limited, arrives at the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
Photo by Patrick Fallon
Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana will host the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards Saturday, February 9 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, presenting nine awards to 25 different recipients.
The awards, first presented in 1931, honor achievements that improve the production, distribution and exhibition of movies. Past winners include IMAX and Avid.
The Academy held the first dinner for the awards in 1977 and it was hosted by Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck.
Pine and Saldana both have several credits in movies with serious technical chops. Pine starred in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" and will appear in this year's sequel, "Into Darkness." Saldana, a "Star Trek" co-star, also starred in James Cameron's "Avatar," which helped spur the recent explosion in 3D films.
David Friendly is producing the presentation, parts of which will be included in the Oscar telecast February 24.
Emma Stone (L) and Seth MacFarlane speak at the 85th Academy Awards nominee announcements in Beverly Hills, California January 10, 2013. The Oscars will be presented Sunday February 24.
Photo by Phil McCarten
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will honor nine scientific and technical achievements at this year's Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation, the Academy said Thursday.
This year's presentation is scheduled February 9 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Among the honorees will be J.P. Lewis, Matt Cordner and Nickson Fong, who invented the Pose Space Deformation technique, which developed into an essential technique in creating computer-generated characters.
Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler will also be lauded for their creation of the Light system for computer graphics lighting at PDI/DreamWorks.
Portions of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be included in the Oscar telecast.
The honorees are:
Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate)
J.P. Lewis, Matt Cordner and Nickson Fong for the invention and publication of the Pose Space Deformation technique.
Pose Space Deformation (PSD) introduced the use of novel sparse data interpolation techniques to the task of shape interpolation. The controllability and ease of achieving artistic intent have led to PSD being a foundational technique in the creation of computer-generated characters.
Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler for the creation of the Light system for computer graphics lighting at PDI/DreamWorks.
Virtually unchanged from its original incarnation over 15 years ago, Light is still in continuous use due to its emphasis on interactive responsiveness, final - quality interactive render preview, scalable architecture and powerful user-configurable spreadsheet interface.
Steve LaVietes, Brian Hall and Jeremy Selan for the creation of the Katana computer graphics scene management and lighting software at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
Katana's unique design, featuring a deferred evaluation procedural node-graph, provides a highly efficient lighting and rendering workflow. It allows artists to non - destructively edit scenes too complex to fit into computer memory, at scales ranging from a single object up to an entire detailed city.
Theodore Kim, Nils Thuerey, Markus Gross and Doug James for the invention, publication and dissemination of Wavelet Turbulence software.
This technique allowed for fast, art-directable creation of highly detailed gas simulation, making it easier for the artist to control the appearance these effects in the final image.
Richard Mall for the design and development of the Matthews Max Menace Arm.
Highly sophisticated and well-engineered, the Max Menace Arm is a safe and adjustable device that allows rapid, precise positioning of lighting fixtures, cameras or accessories. On-set or on location, this compact and highly portable structure is often used where access is limited due to restrictions on attaching equipment to existing surfaces.
Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque)
Simon Clutterbuck, James Jacobs and Dr. Richard Dorling for the development of the Tissue Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework.
This framework faithfully and robustly simulates the effects of anatomical structures underlying a character's skin. The resulting dynamic and secondary motions provide a new level of realism to computer-generated creatures.
Dr. Philip McLauchlan, Allan Jaenicke, John-Paul Smith and Ross Shain for the creation of the Mocha planar tracking and rotoscoping software at Imagineer Systems Ltd.
Mocha provides robust planar-tracking even when there are no clearly defined points in the image. Its effectiveness, ease of use, and ability to exchange rotoscoping data with other image processing tools have resulted in widespread adoption of the software in the visual effects industry.
Joe Murtha, William Frederick and Jim Markland of Anton/Bauer, Inc. for the design and creation of the CINE VCLX Portable Power System.
The CINE VCLX provides extended run-times and flexibility, allowing users to power cameras and other supplementary equipment required for production. This high-capacity battery system is also matched to the high-demand, always-on digital cinema cameras.
Academy Award of Merit (Oscar Statuette)
Cooke Optics Limited for their continuing innovation in the design, development and manufacture of advanced camera lenses that have helped define the look of motion pictures over the last century.
Since their first series of motion picture lenses, Cooke Optics has continued to create optical innovations decade after decade. Producing what is commonly referred to as the "Cooke Look," these lenses have often been the lens of choice for creative cinematographers worldwide.
Academy Award winning actress Helen Hunt, star of the new film "The Sessions" arrives at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences 4th annual Governors Awards in Hollywood December 1, 2012.
Photo by Fred Prouser
From left, award recipients George Stevens Jr., D.A. Pennebaker, Hal Needham and Jeffrey "Sparky" Katzenberg poses with their Oscar statuettes at the 4th Annual Governors Awards at Hollywood and Highland Center's Ray Dolby Ballroom, on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Los Angeles.
Photo by Jordan Strauss
Hollywood producer Jeffrey "Sparky" Katzenberg received an honorary Oscar for his charitable work on Saturday at a star-studded gala that kicked off the movie awards season and bestowed film industry gold on three other industry veterans.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences annually hands out its Governors Awards to people who have made an impact on Hollywood.
This year, the honorary Oscars went to Katzenberg, stuntman Hal Needham, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and arts advocate George Stevens Jr. They were recognized at a black-tie affair that brought out stars such as Annette Bening, Kirk Douglas and Steven Spielberg.
Katzenberg, a former chairman of Walt Disney Co's movie division and the founder and chief executive of Dreamworks Animation, was given a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his fundraising efforts for a range of charitable causes.
Katzenberg, who has helped raise funds for the Motion Picture & Television Fund and the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, said he owed his award to the generosity of those in Hollywood who gave alongside him.
Needham, a sharecropper's son and former Army paratrooper, said he broke 56 bones and punctured a lung during his stunt career. He received an honorary Oscar for his work as one of Hollywood's top stuntmen of the 1960s and 70s. Needham also went on to direct several films starring Burt Reynolds, including "Smokey and the Bandit" and "The Cannonball Run".
"I have ripped off many shots from you," director Quentin Tarantino said in a speech honoring Needham.
D.A. Pennebaker claimed an award for his work as a pioneer of cinema verite. Pennebaker primarily shot his films, including the landmark "Don't Look Back" about Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of the United Kingdom, with a hand-held camera without narration or interviews.
Pennebaker, who is 87, called his award "amazing", then looked around the ballroom and remarked that "everybody here probably has one of these already".
The fourth honorary Oscar went to George Stevens Jr., a director, producer and writer who is best known as the founder of the non-profit American Film Institute, which was created to support filmmaking in the United States.
The Oscars, or Academy Awards, for the films of 2012 will be given out in a ceremony in Los Angeles on February 24. Nominations will be announced on January 10.
