Academy’s Tech Council Adds Four Members
December 7, 2009

Academy’s Tech Council Adds Four Members

Beverly HillsCalif. - Thad Beier, Elizabeth Cohen, Don Hall, and Jim Houston have accepted invitations to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council.

Beier, the head of CG at Digital Domain, was awarded an Academy Technical Achievement Award (shared) in 1998 for the design and implementation of the ras_track tracking software, a device which allows the user to determine the position and location of the camera and objects in a scene by tracking points in scanned sequence. Beier has been a member of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch since 1999.

Founder of Cohen Acoustical Inc. in 1982, Cohen’s work is focused on high-quality media over photonic networks. She has been an associate member of the Academy since 1996.

Chair of the Council’s Image Interchange Framework project committee, Houston is a two-time recipient of the Academy’s Scientific and Engineering Award (shared) – in 1991 for the design and development of the “CAPS” production system for feature film animation, and in 2006 for the design and development of the Rosetta process for creating digital YCM masters for digital film restoration. Houston has been an Academy member since 2008.

The 2009–2010 Council co-chairs are Academy governor Bill Taylor (Visual Effects Branch) and Ray Feeney, the 2006 recipient of the Academy’s Gordon E. Sawyer Award (an Oscar statuette).

The Council’s other 21 members are: Academy Governors Richard Edlund and Bill Kroyer, Peter W. Anderson, Clay M. Davis Jr., Jonathan Erland, Phillip J. Feiner, Richard B. Glickman, David W. Gray, Douglas Greenfield, Rob Hummel, Brad Hunt, David Inglish, George Joblove, Tad Marburg, Takuo Miyagishima, Daryn Okada, Rick Sayre, Garrett Smith, and Barry S. Weiss.