Lens Maker Cooke to Receive Sci-Tech Oscar

U.K.-headquartered lens maker Cooke Optics will receive an Academy Award of Merit — an Oscar statuette — for continuing innovation in its motion picture camera lenses that have been used over the last century. Its popular lenses produce what is commonly referred to as the "Cooke Look.”

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The award will be presented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Scientific and Technical Awards dinner and ceremony, which will be held Feb. 9 at The Beverly Hills Hotel.

Also during the ceremony, the teams behind three innovations will receive Scientific and Engineering Awards (an Academy Plaque) and five innovations will be honored with Technical Achievement Awards (an Academy Certificate).

Selected to receive Scientific and Engineering Awards are Simon Clutterbuck, James Jacobs and Richard Dorling for the tissue physically-based character simulation framework for the creation of CG creatures; Philip McLauchlan, Allan Jaenicke, John-Paul Smith and Ross Shain for the Mocha planar tracking and rotoscoping software at Imagineer Systems; and Joe Murtha, William Frederick and Jim Markland of Anton/Bauer for the Cine VCLX portable power system.

Receiving Technical Achievement Awards are J.P. Lewis, Matt Cordner and Nickson Fong for the Pose Space Deformation technique; Lawrence Kesteloot, Drew Olbrich and Daniel Wexler for the Light system for CG lighting at PDI/DreamWorks; Steve LaVietes, Brian Hall and Jeremy Selan for the Katana CG scene management and lighting software at Sony Pictures Imageworks; Theodore Kim, Nils Thuerey, Markus Gross and Doug James for the Wavelet Turbulence software; and Richard Mall for the Matthews Max Menace Arm.