And the 2023 Scientific and Technical Oscars Go To…

On Sunday, the multiverse might have its biggest win yet at the Oscars, thanks to Everything Everywhere All at Once. But some real science received its own accolades at the Scientific and Technical Awards(Opens in a new window), which took place nearly two weeks ago at a ceremony at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel, hosted by Simu Liu. 

The Scientific and Technical Awards cover many years of work instead of just the past one, since the technologies and techniques often take years of development, and they’re used in films for decades. 

Only the winner of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award gets to go home with a traditional Oscar statuette. Instead, the Technical Achievement Award recipients receive an Academy Certificate, the Scientific and Engineering Awards winners get an Academy Plaque, and the Award of Commendation winners earn a Special Plaque.

Although they won’t take the stage on Sunday, the people behind these achievements are stars to us.

Technical Achievement Awards

When it rains, it pours. And in movies, that’s probably thanks to the 60- and 100-foot Rain Bars invented by Howard Jensen and Danny Cangemi and developed by John Frazier. Maybe the most dramatic and appropriate use of them came in Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah(Opens in a new window). 

Mark Hills and Jim Vanns won for the design and engineering of the FQ(Opens in a new window) renderfarm management system, which has helped deliver photorealistic visual effects for movies such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Matt Chambers won for his work on two render management systems: Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Cue3 and Wētā FX’s Plow. Cue3 was first used for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and FX’s Plow was used in Avatar: The Way of Water. 

Adobe Substance 3D Designer gives artists a procedural workflow for designing complex textures: Sébastien Deguy and Christophe Soum won awards for the concept and original implementation of Substance Engine, and Sylvain Paris and Nicolas Wirrmann won for the design and engineering of Substance Designer. Their work was used in the production of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune, Frozen 2, and Blade Runner 2049. 

The physics-based Fizt2 elastic simulation system is used for modeling elastic materials, such as skin, muscle, and cloth, in animation. David Eberle, Theodore Kim, Fernando de Goes, and Audrey Wong won for the design and development. It was first used on Coco for cloth simulation on a city full of skeletons. 

Scientific and Engineering Awards

The Cinematography Electronics CineTape(Opens in a new window) is a revolutionary range finder. Larry Barton was awarded for its design, development, and engineering along with Ben Wilcox for its electronic engineering and software development. CineTape was first used on 2002’s Spider-Man. 

Preston Cinema Systems Light Ranger 2 lets someone visualize the depth of an entire scene without looking away from the monitor. It was conceived, designed, and engineered by Howard Preston, and Bernie Butler-Smith designed and implemented its electronic circuitry and software. The Light Ranger 2 is what kept us with Adam Sandler(Opens in a new window) for every anxiety-inducing second of Uncut Gems. 

Award of Commendation

Ryan Laney kept hidden the identities of LGBTQIA Chechen refugees from Russia with the AI-driven facial veiling technology he developed, which was used in the documentary Welcome to Chechnya(Opens in a new window).

Gordon E. Sawyer Award

Iain Neil has received 12 Scientific and Technical Awards and is now the recipient of the Academy’s highest honor in the field, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award. Neil has over 100 patents for visible, infrared, and ultraviolet optical design.

“Because I come from a baker’s family, I won’t give this award a number,” Neil said in his speech at the ceremony. “We just called it a baker’s dozen.”

Movies That Get Tech and Science Surprisingly Right

(Credit: Credit: René Ramos; Getty Images/Peter Dazeley; Warner Bros. Pictures. Paramount Pictures, Disney/Pixar, Universal Studios, USA Network)

From Interstellar to (checks notes) Finding Nemo, you’ll be amazed by just how much these movies get right about science and technology.