SMPTE has announced its annual honourees who will be feted at the SMPTE Awards Gala in Hollywood on 27th October.
Among this year’s winners is Rise co-founder and managing director Carrie Wootten. She will receive the Excellence in Education Medal, which recognises outstanding contributions to new or unique educational programmes that teach the technologies of the motion sciences, and those who advance the educational process through innovative and inspirational methods.
Wootten is being recognised for her “outstanding efforts to promote and foster careers within the broadcast technology industry through her work with universities and accrediting bodies, and the establishment of the Rise Up Academy,” said SMPTE.
She will be feted alongside Oscar-winning director Ang Lee who will receive SMPTE’s honorary membership because of his “extensive pioneering innovation in deployment of new technologies to enhance theatrical storytelling”. Charles H. Jablonski will also receive the honorary membership for helping to establish the use of new technologies at the Olympics as well as transitioning television operations and transmission from analogue to digital processes.
SMPTE”s most prestigious medal award, the progress medal, will be presented to Touradj Ebrahimi for his leadership of the JPEG committee, as well as his recent work on exploring standardisation opportunities in the areas of learning-based image coding (JPEG AI), NFTs, secure annotation of media modifications (Fake Media), and the use of DNA molecules for image storage.
The Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal, which recognises outstanding contributions in the design and development of new and improved methods and/or apparatus for motion picture sound, has been won by John Meyer, co-founder of Meyer Sound.
Madeline Noland will be presented with the David Sarnoff medal for outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques or equipment that have improved the engineering phases of television technology. She will be honored for her significant contributions to the ongoing development and implementation of the ATSC 3.0 standard within the United States and internationally.
Other winners include Patrick Renner, for his work on colour management and colour grading tools, Barbara Flueckiger is being recognised for his research on the digitisation and restoration of archival colour films, while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council is being recognised for the “significant creative and technical impact of the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES)”, which enables consistent, high-quality color management across complex, collaborative, end-to-end workflows.
ARRI’s Michael Cieslinski is being celebrated for his work in image and camera design, which has led to the development of a family of high dynamic range electronic cinematography cameras that have the ability to create images with the look of 35mm film. Didier LeGall is being honoured for his contributions to image and video compression.
The full list of SMPTE honourees is available here.