The other Oscar awards!
I look forward to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences awards every year. For the last decade, I have also closely followed the Oscar’s Sci-Tech awards. These are the awards mentioned briefly during the broadcast but they have their own ceremony about two weeks before the televised award show (The awards were held on Feb. 9 this year.).
While a lot of people may not pay attention to these awards or might think they’re boring, I love the behind-the-scenes stories that these nominees have told me about some of my favorite movies and scenes. Having the opportunity to interview the scientists and engineers that work in Hollywood has really given me an appreciation for movie and TV production. I always stay until the end of a movie and watch all of the credits. It is such a thrill to recognize one of the names of someone that I interviewed — it’s like knowing a secret that’s hidden in plain sight. While the ultimate compliment for these crew members is for audiences to not even notice the work that they have done, I like to think that I’ve give them at least a little time in the spotlight.
Here is a recent article about this year’s winners. Many years ago, I had the chance to interview Tony DeRose (who won his second Oscar Sci-Tech award this year!). Although DeRose is currently retired from his work at Pixar, he was in charge of the software research and development for many of Pixar’s films including Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004) and Up (2009) just to name a few of his many film credits. When I interviewed him, we talked about how he uses geometry everyday, and. I remember thinking that this was going to be such a great story for kids who wonder when they’re ever going to use geometry in their real lives?”
If you’d like to read more about some of the past winners, please check out these links to the articles that I wrote for Inside Science:
Five Academy Awards For Cool Science and Engineering (2017)
Shake, Blow, Print and Paint: A Sample of This Years’ Oscar Sci-Tech Awards (2016)
The Science Behind Oscar’s Award-Winning Trees and Tresses (2015)
Trivia: Oscar’s Sci-Tech Awards (2013)
Oscar Sci-Tech Awards Honor Ingenious Screen Science and Engineering (2013)
Thomas Edison Inspires the Oscar Awards You Don’t See (2012)
Hands on High-Tech Moviemaking (2011)
Oscar Worthy Science and Engineering (2010)
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