In Broadcast - December 2014 - 74

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 38 - DECEMBER 2014

N E W S

InREVIEW

Motion-Imaging Luminaries
Honoured By SMPTE
S

MPTE has conferred its
top honours to Leonardo
Chiariglione, George Lucas, John
Logie Baird, and Ioan Allen at
its 2014 honours and awards
ceremony.
Chiariglione and Lucas were given
the Society's highest accolade, the
status of Honorary Membership;
Baird (1888-1946) was added to
the Society's Honour Roll; and Allen
was awarded the Progress Medal.

have performed eminent service in
the advancement of engineering in
motion pictures, television, or the
allied arts and sciences.
Matthew Goldman, SMPTE
Finance Vice President and Senior
Vice President of TV compression
technology at Ericsson, accepted
Honorary Membership on behalf
of Chiariglione, who is generally
considered to be the driving
force behind the development of

74

the Clones' was the first major
Hollywood feature to be captured
digitally, on 24p high-deﬁnition (HD)
video cameras.
Accepting his award at the SMPTE
ceremony, Lucas said: "I owe it to a
lot of people, a lot of engineers, a lot
of talent who immediately said, 'Well,
we can't do that; it's impossible,'
and I said, 'Go do it anyway.' They
came through for me, almost every
single time, and we pushed the
envelope. Art is basically technology,
and all art and all artists bump up
against that technology ceiling.
"Fortunately, I had a lot of people
around me. I could say, 'I want to
go there. See how you can make
that happen because I need to
go there for my story.'" Following
reﬂections on his past achievements,
Lucas concluded his speech by
restating the inﬂuence of SMPTE
throughout his career, saying, "I've
lived with SMPTE my whole life, and
it's a great honour to be part of the
organisation."

Roll Of Honour

Barbara Lange, George Lucas, Wendy Aylsworth

Held in the Loews Hollywood
Hotel in conjunction with the SMPTE
2014 Annual Technical Conference &
Exhibition, the ceremony and dinner
recognised pioneers from across
the motion-imaging industry. The
evening event was hosted by awardwinning television and radio news
anchor Frank Mottek and sponsored
by IMAX, with support from TV Pro
Gear, Canon, EIKI, and voice talent
Deborah Alexander.
SMPTE President Wendy
Aylsworth said: "Honouring leading
ﬁgures such as John Logie Baird,
Leonardo Chiariglione, George
Lucas, Ioan Allen, and many
other industry luminaries, the
Honours & Awards Ceremony this
year showcased motion-imaging
innovation spanning nearly a century.
"The remarkable technical
achievements of these honourees
and award winners are both
humbling and inspiring, and this
year's event gave us a rare and
wonderful look at the minds and
personalities behind the evolution
of ﬁlm and television."

Honorary Members

The Honorar y Memberships
conferred upon Chiariglione and
Lucas recognise individuals who

the MPEG set of standards that
underpin today's many digital
moving-pictures applications.
His constant push for a simple,
standardised moving-pictures
toolbox began in 1988 with the
founding of the ISO Moving Pictures
Experts Group (MPEG). Chiariglione
has forcefully maintained focus on
timely standardisation, technical
simplicity, and efﬁciency. The wide
adoption of MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, in
particular, is apt testimony to the
contribution Chiariglione and the
MPEG group has made to date.
In addition to serving as writer,
director, and producer for iconic
American ﬁlms, Lucas has pioneered
adoption of new technologies for
motion picture production and
exhibition. In 1975, he founded
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM),
which has not only produced visual
effects for nearly 300 ﬁlms, but also
invented the OpenEXR ﬁle format
to support high dynamic range
(HDR) imaging. The animation
studio Pixar was founded as the
Graphix Group of Lucasfilm in
1979, and sound company THX
was co-founded by Lucas in 1983
to advance the quality of theatrical
sound systems. Released in 2002,
'Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of

Peter Weitzel, Secretary/Treasurer
of the SMPTE UK Section, accepted
the SMPTE Honour Roll award on
behalf of Baird's family by reading an
acceptance letter from Baird's son.
Conferred posthumously, the
award recognises individuals
who were not awarded Honorary
Membership during their lifetimes
but whose contributions would
have been sufficient to warrant
such an honour.
Baird's accomplishments include
the ﬁrst live television demonstration
(1925), the ﬁrst publicly shown colour
television system (1928), and the
ﬁrst fully electronic colour television
picture tube, adopted a year later
by the BBC. Baird continued to
develop new technology throughout

Dolby SVP Ioan Allen

his life, including a mechanical
colour system in 1939 (adopted by
CBS/RCA); a 500-line 3D system
in 1941; and an electronic 600line colour display in 1944. Baird
lobbied for post-war standardisation
of his 1,000-line electronic colour
television system.

Progress Medal

The Progress Medal, SMPTE's
highest medal award, was
presented to Ioan Allen, who is
Senior Vice President at Dolby,
in recognition of his outstanding
technical contributions to the
progress of engineering phases of
the motion picture, television, or
motion-imaging industries.
His innovations in sound research
and development programs at Dolby
Laboratories include Dolby Stereo,
Dolby Spectral Recording (Dolby SR),
and Dolby Digital; he also has made
ongoing contributions to worldwide
standards organisations.

George Lucas (Pictures courtesy of SMPTE: Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging.)

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=Phillip&last=Izzard&search=Go https://twitter.com/inbroadcast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpzEatLsHdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player https://www.facebook.com/InBroadcast http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inbroadcast/id468652679?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.branded.inbroadcast&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5icmFuZGVkLmluYnJvYWRjYXN0Il0. http://WWW.INBROADCAST.COM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftgeKv88Tg4

In Broadcast - December 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - December 2014