Academy Awards 2005

The nominees for the 2005 Academy Awards were announced this week. I admit it - I'm a bit of a movie snob and don't really care about most of the awards. Of the main/more popular ones, I really only care about Achievement in Cinematography. The nominees this year are:

"Batman Begins" (Warner Bros.)
Wally Pfister

"Brokeback Mountain" (Focus Features)
Rodrigo Prieto

"Good Night, and Good Luck." (Warner Independent Pictures)
Robert Elswit

"Memoirs of a Geisha" (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Dion Beebe

"The New World" (New Line)
Emmanuel Lubezki

Of these, I've only seen The New World and it was absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography is an essential part of the story, with Mother Nature almost a character herself.

The Science, Engineering, and Technical Achievement award winners have already been announced. These are the geeks who theorize about CGI and make funky lenses and camera mounts so we get to watch some amazing shots. E.g.:

To David Baraff, Michael Kass and Andrew Witkin for their pioneering work in physically-based computer-generated techniques used to simulate realistic cloth in motion pictures.

Their 1998 paper titled “Large Steps in Cloth Simulation” was a seminal work, providing the key in demonstrating to the industry that the calculations necessary to simulate realistic, complex cloth could be achieved efficiently and robustly. Their work provided the conceptual foundation for many cloth simulation systems in use today.

No doubt Jar Jar Binks' funeral outfit in Revenge of the Sith looked very realistic due to these guys. Here's to the dorks!!