On October 19, 2010, Susan Pinsky and I had the pleasure of attending the International 3D Society 2010 3D Technology Awards ceremonies at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater complex in Hollywood, CA. Also attending were LA3DCLUB members Ray Zone, Kathleen Fairweather, Jeff Amaral, Jon Schnitzer and Jinsha Moore, Shannon Benna, Eric Kurland, and John Hart.
The International 3D Society has been founded to advance the art and technologies of stereoscopic 3D content and its professional innovators. The I3DS hosts educational opportunities for showcasing work, recognizing achievement and advancing member growth. The International 3D Society is open to individuals and organizations active in moving 3D media to an exciting new era of creative achievement and consumer support. The award that they created is called the “Lumiere Award”, and is made by the same company that makes the Oscar® statue award for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Unlike the Creative Awards, which were given out in February of 2010, for best achievements in 3D film making, the Technology Awards acknowledge the people and companies who are creating equipment and software to make high quality digital 3-D filming both easier and better than it has ever been before.
Here is a list of the 2010 3D TECHNOLOGY AWARDS RECIPIENTS:
3ALITY DIGITAL
“STEREO IMAGE PROCESSOR (SIP)”
Martin Beck, Martin Borchert, Matthias Lenz,
Howard Postley, Steve Schklair
AUTODESK
“MAYA”
Dan Pressman, Jason Walter, Martin Werner
Colonel Robert Bernier*
Optics
*Gold Award
Chris Condon (of StereoVision International)
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
DOLBY LABORATORIES
“DOLBY 3D”
Wilson Allen, Gary Gomes, Marty Richards, Dave Schnuelle
“DISNEY DUAL-CAMERA 3D RIG”
STEVE HINES & THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS
IMAX**
“SOLIDO SYSTEMS”
Ken Baker, Michael Dean, Gord Harris, Michael Hendriks,
Phil Insull, Brian Neale, Mehran Omidvar, William Shaw
**”Century” Award
IMAX*
“DUAL 16/65MM & 30PERF SINGLE-STRIP 65MM 3D CAMERA”
Leo Baljet, Colin Gardiner, James Neihouse
John Shaw, William Shaw
*Gold Award
IN-THREE
“DIMENSIONALIZATION®”
Neil Feldman
IRIDAS*
“DUALSTREAM”
Michael Gallo, Lin S. Kayser, Michal Krcmar
*Gold Award
MASTERIMAGE 3D
“DIGITAL 3D CINEMA SYSTEM”
Younghoon Lee, Yongbi Jung
MSM Design*
DUAL 16/65MM & 30PERF SINGLE-STRIP 65MM 3D CAMERA”
Gordon Gruel, Barbara Mueller, Martin Mueller,
William Nixon, John Stafford
*Gold Award
NVIDIA
“3D VISION™”
David Cook, Frank Fox, Gerrit Slavenburg
PANASONIC
Wheatstone Award
QUANTEL
“PABLO”
Simon Rogers, David Throup
RealD**
“CINEMA SYSTEM”
**”Century” Award
SASSOON FILM DESIGN
“2D TO 3D CONVERSION”
Tim Sassoon
SONY PICTURES IMAGEWORKS
“3D PIPELINE”
Alan Davidson, Rob Engle, Dan Lake,
Peter Palombi, Mylene Pepe, J. Robert Ray
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS**
“DLP CINEMA”
**”Century” Award
THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS
“3D PIPELINE”
Evan Goldberg, Andrew Hendrickson, James Hurrell, Joseph Longson,
Phil McNally, Robert Neuman, Paul Allen Newell, Matthew Schnittker
XpanD
“ACTIVE 3D CINEMA SYSTEM”
Boyd McNaughton
After a one hour reception, the ceremonies began with a short 3-D film clip. This was a superb quality presentation of Chinese dancers in colorful traditional looking costumes, presenting a highly synchronized dance routine. The dancers were lined up so precisely that the dance began with what looked like a single dancer, but quickly expanded as the dozen or so dancers, behind the front one, had arms that emerged in waves and levels going behind the first dancer. Then one by one the dancers emerged fully, in expanding and merging patterns, which would not have been nearly as impressive without the superb 3-D cinematography of the routines. It ended to a rounding applause, and at the end credits we learned that this was part of a 11 minute 3D film called “My Dream”, shot only a few weeks earlier in Korea. It is a Coproduction of Hwy3D, China Disabled Performance Troupe and Korean Film Council. Directed by Joy Park, Executive Stereoscopic Producer: Ray Zone, Stereographer: Jeff Amaral, and 3ality camera rig operator: Scott Ressler. Ray, Jeff, and Scott are all members of the Stereo Club of Southern California.
Susan and I were pleased to see our friend, and former employer (when we worked at Stereovision International) Chris Condon, honored with the first LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Technology Awards from the I3DS. A clip from his famous 1969 3-D financial hit, “The Stewardesses” was shown.
Sadly, Chris, whose work in 3D filming spans 50 years, was unable to attend due to health issues, but presenter Lenny Lipton of Oculus 3D, said the award would be taken to him Wednesday at his hospital room in Burbank.
We were pleased to see NSA Board Member Ray Zone introduced as the Society’s “3-D Historian”. To that end, Ray came to the lectern, and introduced two historical film clips. The first, the Lumiere Brothers 1895 “Arrival of a Train”. Though not 3-D, the story is that when this was fist publicly shown in 1896, some people in the audience leapt out of their seats, to get out of the way, as seeing a moving image of a train heading straight for the audience was a new experience. Ray explained that while there were rumors that this was shot in 3-D, in reality the Lumiere Brothers shot a very similar experimental 3-D film in 1935. We were then showed this film clip in 3-D. It was gratifying to see that the I3DS wants to acknowledge the history of 3-D cinema that has led the medium to it’s current state.
A highlight of the program for us was a work-in-progress, four-minute clip presented by Susan Lloyd from her grandfather Harold Lloyd’s classic silent black-and-white film “Safety Last,” in which there is the famous scene showing Lloyd hanging several stories high from a giant clock over a busy downtown Los Angeles street. The original clip of this scene was shown, followed by a colorized and 3-D version that was amazingly good in it’s stereoscopic depth. Apparently a part of this film is being converted to 3D and colorized by Legend 3D and founder Barry Sandrew, who invented digital colorization. Even though the clip looked excellent, we have read that Sandrew told 3DHollywood.net that it is still being improved, and the final version will be shown at the second annual International 3D Society Awards honoring creative arts on Feb. 9, 2011. He also said that there are no plans to convert the entire film. We hope that the Lloyd estate may change it’s mind about this once the final test is complete. This may prove that even a classic silent film may have a new life thanks to high quality 3-D conversion.
With a lot of the Hollywood community still on the fence about whether this current popularity if 3-D cinema and 3-D television is here to stay, the International 3D Society seems to be filling a role within that community to educate the professionals who make a living in this field, and ensure that 3-D is taken seriously, and that it becomes a permanent creative option to modern filmmakers.
-David Starkman, Culver City, CA – Oct. 2010
