And the nominees are…
Ambient Occlusion, Point Based Color Bleeding, Rigtight, Heden Lens Motors with Two-Stage Friction Drive Planetary Torque Amplifier, and seven others.
Or, to use names that might be marginally more recognizable for those of us who don’t dwell on the sci-tech side of the film industry, the nominees are Pixar, Fujifilm, Industrial Light and Magic and eight of their high-tech brethren.
Those are the achievements, and their creators, who are now being considered for the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards, a separate ceremony that’ll be held on February 20, and then recapped on the Oscar show two weeks later.
That recap will probably include at least one joke from the host about how arcane and forbidding the Sci-Tech Awards are.
By the way, these aren’t official nominations – they’re simply achievements that “have been selected for further awards consideration.”
The next step is “thorough investigation” by the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, which’ll recommend to the board of governors whether the achievements deserve certificates, plaques or actual Oscar statuettes.
And by the way, if you see something on the list that borrowed your idea or something that you did first, there’s still time to get in the mix by contacting the committee.
Thorough investigation? Challenges against nominees? The actors branch is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that those don’t come into play in their categories.
The AMPAS press release is here.
