January 10, 1996

TECHNICAL OSCAR WINNERS ANNOUNCED

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Developers of digital audio systems for theaters that have improved the quality of movie sound tracks will receive Academy Award recognition for technical achievement.

Twenty-three technical winners were announced Friday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The awards will be presented March 2 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The regular Oscars will be handed out March 25.

All the honors announced Friday were noted with plaques and certificates. None of this year's technical achievements was deemed worth of an Oscar statuettes, nor will the academy present a Gordon Sawyer Award for special technical accomplishment.

Three companies were awarded plaques for designing and developing digital theater sound systems: Dolby Laboratories, the Sony Corporation and Digital Theaters Systems.

Howard Flemming and Ronald Uhlig earned a plaque for pioneering work leading to motion picture digital sound.

Plaques also were awarded to the designers of a gyroscopically stabilized camera system that can be used on helicopters, boats and camera cars; the developers of a zoom lens that maintains constant image size while changing focus; the makers of a lightweight IMAX-formatted camera; two separate teams behind digital sound printing heads; a team for their groundbreaking inventions in digital image compositing; and the developer of a camera system that allows for the first time full intelligent computer control of the operation and functions of a sync-sound production camera of innovative design.

The Academy awarded certificates of achievement to the makers of a propelling stunt device and a special effects system that creates realistic lightning strikes.

The "Lightning Strikes" system, developed by David Pringle and Zhang Yan, uses a xenon light source to produce programmable, realistic lightning effects.

Joe Finnegan was honored for developing a pneumatically powered device called an Air Ram that propels stunt people with improved safety. It was the first device made small enough to be easily installed and concealed, the academy said.

Certificates also go to the designer of a digital sound system; a team behind a fully automated patchbay and metering system; two separate developers of flicker-free color video-assist cameras; three separate teams for their pioneering efforts in the creation of digital film compositing systems; a company for engineering components integral to digital sound printing systems; the developers of a single-step silver recovery system.