Oscars: Israeli team wins Academy Award for film technology
Every year, in addition to the winners of the traditional Oscars, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces winners in various scientific and technical categories.
By HANNAH BROWNcover - Oscars 2020(photo credit: Courtesy)
An Israeli team won an Academy Award in the Scientific & Engineering category for 2021.The winners were announced on Tuesday night, and Prof. Meir Feder of the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University and his former student and co-founding partner of the start-up Amimon, Dr. Zvi Reznic, shared the award with Amimon’s senior executives, Guy Dorman and Ron Yogev.Every year, in addition to the winners of the traditional Oscars, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces winners in various scientific and technical categories, honored for the impact their work has had on the global film industry.The Academy Award to this team honored the wireless video technology developed by the Amimon team, and implemented through Amimon’s chipset. Amimon was founded in 2004 by Feder, Reznic and Noam Geri, who is also a graduate of Tel Aviv University.Feder said that the prizewinning technology is now used throughout the global film industry. He explained that the technology is able to transmit video shots of very high quality, reliably and quickly, from a large number of cameras in real time, to monitors on the set, thereby providing the film’s director and crew with full control of all shooting angles simultaneously.The Academy Award Committee stated in its announcement: “By using novel extensions of digital data transmission and compression algorithms, and data prioritization based on error rate, the Amimon chipset supports the creation of systems with virtually unrestricted camera motion, expanding creative freedom during filming.”Feder said: “This is a very exciting day for me, and a proud moment for Tel Aviv University.“We developed the basic technology in 2004-2005, when everyone thought that the task was very difficult or even impossible. We knew that it was a real technological achievement, but never imagined we would win the Oscar for it.“About a year ago the Prize Committee notified us that we had been nominated, but I thought it was just a gimmick. About a month ago I suddenly got an official email from the Academy in Hollywood, informing us that we had won the Oscar.“We were elated. I have won many academic awards, but the Oscar is certainly the most famous, an award that every person in the street knows. For me and for the great team who took part in developing the technology, this is an enormous achievement, and I feel very proud.”
Joseph Pitchhadze, a movie director who teaches at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, said “the main importance of Prof. Meir Feder’s technological development is shortening the set building in multi-camera productions. This novel technology saves production time and frees significantly more time for the creation itself.”
