Peter Jackson's Weta Digital and George Lucas' Lucasfilm are among the finalists for next year's Scientific and Technical Academy Awards, the Academy announced on Friday.
Although the list of scientific and technical achievements now under consideration is only slightly comprehensible to those of us unacquainted with the intricacies of a Zviz Previsualization System, a Matthews MAX Menace Arm or a Tissue Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework, the list of companies responsible contains some big names in the sci-tech world, including Weta, Lucasfilm and Imagineer Systems.
The shortlist consists of seven achievements; the Sci-Tech Awards announce candidates well in advance of the final selection so that others with similar devices, or with claims or prior accomplishments, can make their cases to the Academy.
This year's shortlisted achievements:
Tissue: A Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework (Weta Digital)
Zviz: Previsualization System (Lucasfilm)
Light: Lighting Tool (PDI Dreamworks)
Wavelet Turbulence for Fluid Simulation (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Planar Tracking: mocha and Enabling Technology (Imagineer Systems Ltd.)
Cine VCLX Portable Power System (Anton/Bauer)
Matthews MAX Menace Arm (Matthews Studio Equipment)
In most cases, these shortlisted achievements will go on to receive Sci-Tech awards. Last year, for instance, six of the nine accomplishments on the shortlist went through the review process and received awards.
(Among those that didn't: the RealD 3D projection system.)
The deadline to submit additional entries for consideration is Aug. 28. A final decision on the Sci-Tech Awards winners will be made by the Academy's Board of Governors in early December, and the ceremony will take place on Feb. 9, 2013.
