Gordon E. Sawyer Award

	Gary Demos, left, winner of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, an Oscar statuette, is pictured here with actress Rachel McAdams, host of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Scientific and Technical Awards Ceremony on February 18.

Gary Demos, a pioneering motion picture technologist in the motion picture industry, has been voted the Gordon E. Sawyer Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Award, an Oscar statuette, was presented at the Scientific and Technical Awards Dinner on Saturday, February 18 at The Beverly Hilton.

Demos has been pursuing the investigation of scientific issues in the motion picture industry for more than 30 years. "He's been involved in many different scientific disciplines throughout his extended career and has always been looking to the future," said Academy President Sid Ganis.

In 1984, Demos received his first Scientific and Engineering Award (with John Whitney, Jr.) for the practical simulation of motion picture photography by means of computer-generated images. A decade later, Demos was awarded his second Scientific and Engineering Award (with Dan Cameron, David DiFrancesco, Gary Starkweather and Scott Squires) for his groundbreaking work in the field of film input scanning. In 1995, the Academy honored him with a Technical Achievement Award (with David Ruhoff, Dan Cameron and Michelle Feraud) for his efforts in the creation of the Digital Productions Digital Film Compositing System.

Demos, along with Whitney, established the "Motion Picture Project" at Information International to produce computer generated simulated scenes for such movies as "Futureworld," "Looker" and "Tron."

In 1988, Demos established DemoGraFX, a technology research and computer and visual effects consulting company where he specialized in research relative to high performance cameras and digital compression based upon the discrete cosine transform.

Demos is currently working in the development of new wavelet-based and optimal-filter-based moving image compression technology for high bit-depth and high dynamic range.

A member of the Academy's visual effects branch since 2003, Demos serves on the Scientific and Technical committee.

Established in 1981, the Sawyer Award is "presented to an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry." Demos was the 19th recipient of the Award.

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01/17/2006 Academy to Honor Gary Demos with Gordon E. Sawyer Oscar®