Beverly Hills, Calif. - Craig Barron, Lisa Zeno Churgin, Caleb Deschanel, Randal Kleiser, and Alex McDowell have accepted invitations to join the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Barron, an Oscar-winning visual effects specialist (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), is head of Matte World Digital, where he has created effects for such films as Titanic, The Green Mile, Zodiac, and Alice in Wonderland. In 1992, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Batman Returns. Barron is an Academy governor representing the Visual Effects Branch and has been an Academy member since 1994.
Churgin, an Academy Award-nominated editor for The Cider House Rules, has edited more than 20 features, including Reality Bites, Gattaca, House of Sand
and Fog, and Pride and Glory. She has been a member of the Academy’s Film Editors Branch since 1997.
Deschanel is a five-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer recognized for his work on The Right Stuff, The Natural, Fly Away Home, The Patriot, and The Passion of the Christ. He is an Academy governor representing the Cinematographers Branch and has been an Academy member since 1984.
Kleiser has directed such features as Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Big Top Pee-wee, White Fang, and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. He has been a member of the Academy’s Directors Branch since 1981.
McDowell is a production designer whose credits include Fight Club, Minority Report, The Terminal, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and Watchmen. He has been a member of the Academy’s Art Directors Branch since 2003.
The 2010–2011 Council co-chairs are Academy governor Bill Kroyer (Short Films and Feature Animation Branch) and Ray Feeney, the recipient of the 2006 Academy’s Gordon E. Sawyer Award (an Oscar statuette).
The Council’s other 18 members are: Academy governors Richard Edlund and Don Hall, Peter W. Anderson, Thad Beier, Elizabeth Cohen, Jonathan Erland, David W. Gray, Douglas Greenfield, Jim Houston, Rob Hummel, Brad Hunt, David Inglish, George Joblove, Tad Marburg, Daryn Okada, Rick Sayre, Garrett Smith, and Barry S. Weiss.
Established in 2003 by the Academy’s Board of Governors, the Science and Technology Council provides a forum for the exchange of information, promotes cooperation among diverse technological interests within the industry, sponsors publications, fosters educational activities and preserves the history of science and technology of motion pictures.