Shotgun Software Wins Academy Award for Technical Achievement
Technology has always been integral to the media and entertainment industry. For every star in front of the camera and director behind the lens, there are hundreds of engineers, technicians, and craftspeople who have pushed the field forward through invention and innovation—from silent films to sound, from black and white to color, from celluloid to digital, and beyond.
That’s why, in addition to the familiar awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Film, and the like, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also gives out Technical Achievement Awards, as they have since 1931.
Over the decades, there have been awards given for innovations large and small, everything from cameras, film, and projectors to microphones and audio media; from air rams for stunts to a robotic horse for scenes on saddleback; from substances that simulate snow on set to software for simulating hair and fur in digital animation.
This year, one of the Technical Achievement Awards went to Shotgun, Autodesk’s project management platform. “An extensible, web-based, flexible and scalable system, Shotgun has enabled the efficient management of highly complex visual effects and animation post-production workflows,” the Academy states. “By facilitating deep integration into a wide variety of facility pipelines, Shotgun has successfully productized the tracking of complex production data on large-scale motion pictures.”
In giving the award, the Academy noted the contributions of the original team that developed the software: Don Parker for the product vision and design; Matt Daw for the core architecture; and Isaac Reuben, Colin Withers, and Neil Brandt for the foundational engineering. This award follows Shotgun’s recent Emmy win for "pioneering secure cloud-based VFX project management and collaboration at scale," as well as its previous engineering Emmy.
Learn more about what’s possible with Shotgun with these AU resources.
Automated Resource Leveling and Scheduling at LAIKA
LAIKA’s unique blend of digital and stop-motion animation has produced major films like Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link. Learn how they use Shotgun in their browser-based workflow and automated resource-leveling to replace a time-consuming and error-prone manual leveling and scheduling process.
Workflows for Virtual Production with Remote Teams
What media production tasks can be handled remotely and what has to happen in-person and on-site? Erik Weaver and Hardie Tankersley share their process involving game engines, LED wall production, motion capture, volumetric scanning, and cloud services to handle as many tasks virtually and remotely as possible—from production planning to location scouting and VFX production.
The Swift Turn the World Made Us Take
Media and entertainment wasn’t the only industry that was forced to use virtual and remote processes in 2020. Carlos Cristerna of Neoscape shares how professionals in the field of building design and construction adopted new workflows and new approaches, and how we can use them to work smarter in the future.
Advanced Automotive Workflows with Shotgun
Shotgun isn’t just for making movies and TV shows. Its ability to keep track of tasks, projects, products, and data also makes it a big asset in automotive manufacturing. Brandon Tasker explains.
You can find more Shotgun-related learning at AU whenever you’re ready.
