The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) revealed the honorees and award winners that will be recognized at an awards ceremony, Oct. 24 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif.
The Progress Medal will be awarded to Keiichi Kubota in recognition of his 37-year career in television science and technology and his significant contributions in the areas of HDTV standardization activities for SMPTE, ATSC and the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television. The award also recognizes his contribution to the rollout of NHK‘s digital satellite broadcasting service and, most recently, the standardization of UHDTV in ITU-R and coverage of the 2012 London Olympics in Super Hi-Vision.
The Archival Technology Medal, which recognizes contributions related to the long-term storage, archive or preservation of media content, will be presented to Milton Shefter in recognition of his long-standing leadership in defining practices for the storage and archive of the industry’s film legacy and digital media content. Co-author and co-editor of “The Digital Dilemma,” which articulates the industry’s archival challenges in the digital era, Shefter is one of the industry’s most consistent expert voices on image and sound preservation. He is a SMPTE Fellow and a past president of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.
Chuck Pagano will receive the The David Sarnoff Medal for his pioneering efforts with ESPN, including the creation of ESPN’s first Bristol-based digital center; the adoption of HD; the creation of ESPN’s infrastructure for its online, mobile and TV Everywhere platforms; the 2009 opening of the L.A. production center; groundbreaking experiments in virtual reality; pioneering 3D sports production advances; globe-spanning fiber networks; new research facilities that are now testing 4K technologies, and work on the new Digital Center 2, a 195,000-square-foot facility that will feature a number of other technical firsts when it goes live in 2014.
The Digital Processing Medal will be presented to R. Norman Hurst in recognition of his invention of methods for splicing MPEG-2 transport streams, the development of test bitstreams for evaluating video and audio compression equipment performance and the development of electronic test patterns to evaluate video encoding and processing systems through visual observation of the outputs they produce.
Edward Giorgianni will receive the 2013 Kodak Educational Award for his contributions to color management and workflow innovation in motion pictures through the digital intermediate and digital cinema eras. Giorgianni has been instrumental in defining the basic conventions by which film integrates into digital workflows through Cineon color encoding specifications. He was a principal architect of the Academy Color Encoding System, permitting a more seamless interchange of film, video and CG imagery for modern content delivery. Giorgianni’s commitment to open dissemination of color and imaging science through his contribution to books, including his own co-authored with Thomas E. Madden, and to students at Rochester Institute of Technology, where he is an adjunct professor, reflects the spirit of the Kodak Educational Award.
The Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal, which recognizes the development of new and improved methods or tools for motion picture sound will be awarded to Thomas Scott. Scott’s career in motion picture sound began when he joined American Zoetrope Studios to work on Apocalypse Now. Later at Dolby Laboratories and the Saul Zaentz Film Center, he worked on the sound for more than 10 feature films and received best sound Academy Awards for The Right Stuff and Amadeus. While director of engineering at Skywalker Sound he supervised production and deployment of the EditDroid and SoundDroid, revolutionary computer-based picture and sound editing equipment. Scott is co-founder and vice president, technology of EDNET. Scott, a SMPTE Fellow, has held several SMPTE offices, including engineering director and standards director.
The Technicolor/Herbert T. Kalmus Medal will be presented to William Feightner for his extensive contributions to the art and science of digital motion picture film image science. At Composite Image Systems (CIS), he helped to develop the pioneering pin-registered telecine system that revolutionized the process of image compositing from film sources. Then, at EFILM he developed countless innovations that advanced the state of the industry, including innovative new software for digital laboratory calibration from glass to glass. Feightner is recognized industry-wide as one of the top image science experts in the field.
The Workflow Systems Medal, recognizing the development and integration of IT file-based systems and infrastructures into production processes, will be presented to John Anthony Footen in recognition of his pioneering introducing workflow-improving approaches such as service-oriented architecture (SOA) to the media industry. Footen has been very active in the area of workflow improvement for many years now. He has been a leader in AMWA and EBU‘s FIMS effort, chairs SMPTE’s 34CS technology committee, has been active in workflow-related activities such as BXF, and is an industry leader in the application of SOA to media. He has also been a regular speaker and moderator at SMPTE conferences.
William Miller has earned the 2013 SMPTE Presidential Proclamation for contributions spanning decades and covering all aspects of the Society’s key objectives in standards, education and membership. Miller has served in management roles including governor, section chair and engineering vice president and has been a dedicated contributor to countless standards, conferences and section activities. He recently pioneered a program in which he matched donations made by other SMPTE members to pay for student memberships. More than 250 students are now members as a result.
Every year, one SMPTE Journal Award is presented to the author of the most outstanding paper originally published in the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal during the preceding year. The 2013 SMPTE Journal Award will be presented to Wayne Bretl for “Theoretical and Practical Limits to Wide Color Gamut Imaging in Objects, Reproducers and Cameras,” published in the May/June 2012 issue. Journal Certificates of Merit will also be presented to Brian Long, Roger Schwenke, Peter Soper and Glenn Leembruggen for their November/December 2012 journal article titled, “Further Investigations Into the Interactions Between Cinema Loudspeakers and Screens,” and to Martin Banks, Jenny Read, Robert Allison, and Simon Watt for their May/June 2012 article titled, “Stereoscopy and the Human Visual System.”
The Citation of Outstanding Service to the Society, which recognizes individuals for dedicated service to the Society over a sustained period of time, will be conferred upon five SMPTE members:
Peter Collis, for his consistency and tenacity in the work he has done for the Australia Section. Collis has been a long-standing and diligently active member of the section leadership team, providing consistently high levels of support to meeting events, including the biennial Australia Section Conference and Exhibition.
Tim Dwight, for his tireless efforts in organizing New York Section meetings. Dwight has consistently made the effort not only to improve section meetings, but also to ensure that meeting notices are distributed and meetings are publicized in advance of the events. He has also played a vital role in enlisting new members in the section.
Bruce Follmer, for his consistent support of the New York Section since 1977. As a section manager, Follmer has been involved in organizing and producing numerous section events. He has attended meetings consistently and has contributed and initiated many ideas, which he has organized and implemented.
Eric Gsell, for his dedicated service, positive attitude, and technical knowledge and support of the Hollywood Section. Gsell has been a consistent resource in helping with section meetings, as well as the SMPTE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, for many years.
Oleg Nikolayevich Raev, for his invaluable work in the Russian Federation Section. Since 2009, Raev has been instrumental in initiating and organizing annual 3D conferences that have become the central events for 3D scientists and technicians in the Russian region.
The Excellence in Standards Award will be presented to John Hurst for his sustained efforts in D-Cinema standards and interoperability. In these areas, he consistently provides objective evaluation of the technical and business trade-offs of D-Cinema, with rigorous attention to technical detail to ensure the accurate interrelationship of SMPTE’s D-Cinema standards.
The Louis F. Wolf Jr. Memorial Scholarship is designed to help students further their undergraduate or graduate studies in motion pictures and television, with an emphasis on technology. The 2013 scholarship will be awarded to Joshua Berkowitz, who is pursuing a degree in motion picture science from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Fourteen new SMPTE Fellows also will be recognized during the event.
For more information, visit: www.smpte.org.
