Blackhawk High grad wins Oscar, brings new realism to animation
Animated movie characters, that is.
For that achievement, Iben, a 1997 Blackhawk High graduate, earned an Academy Award last weekend.
The South Beaver Township native, director of engineering for the famed Pixar film studio, officially received her prestigious Oscar award when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a virtual ceremony on Feb. 13, bestowing Scientific And Technical Achievement Awards for 17 filmmaking innovations.
Iben and three Pixar colleagues, Mark Meyer, John Anderson and Andrew Witkin, created the Taz Hair Simulation System that brought a new level of realism to digital characters in popular animated films like 2012 s Brave and 2015 s Inside Out.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented its 2021 Scientific and Technical Awards on Saturday (Feb. 13). It recognized 17 technologies represented by 55 individuals in a virtual ceremony hosted by filmmaker Nia DaCosta.
James Cameron paid tribute to the honorees, stating: “The motion picture innovation train never stops. Its progress is in fact vital to the art form. Technical advancement is disrupting the creative process at a breakneck pace. Filmmaking shouldn’t merely keep up, it has the power to lead.”
The honorees also included three women: Hayley Iben of Pixar Animation Studios and Kelly Ward Hammel and Maryann Simmons of Walt Disney Animation Studio. This is particularly noteworthy as the technical achievements are mostly dominated by men. During the virtual ceremony, Kathleen Kennedy highlighted the achievements of women working in technical roles.
Robert Derry and
Glenn Derry for the system design, ergonomics, engineering and workflow integration of the widely adopted Technoprops head-mounted camera system.
The Technoprops head-mounted camera system, with its modular and production-proven construction, supports consistent face alignment with improved actor comfort, while at the same time permitting quick reconfiguration and minimizing downtime. This system enables repeatable, accurate and unobstructed capture of an actor’s facial movements.
To
Babak Beheshti and
Scott Robitille for the development of the compact, stand-alone, phase-accurate genlock synchronization and recording module, and to
Ian Kelly and
Dejan Momcilovic for the technical direction and workflow integration, of the Standard Deviation head-mounted camera system.
Oscars: Three Women From Disney and Pixar Among SciTech Awards Honorees Carolyn Giardina Oscar Statuettes
Seventeen scientific and technical developments representing 55 individuals including three women, which may be a first in a single season will be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Scientific and Technical Awards. The honorees and their work, which includes advancement in hair simulation and sound tech, will be recognized during a virtual presentation hosted by filmmaker Nia DaCosta (
Little Woods) on Feb. 13 starting at 1 p.m. PT on the Oscars’ website.
Science and technology for filmmaking is an area still largely dominated by men. In fact, since 1961, only 20 women have received Scientific and Technical Awards. This year three women will join that list: Hayley Iben, a simulation research engineer at Pixar Animation Studios, who will be honored as part of the Taz hair simulation tech team, as well as Kelly Ward Hammel,