John Bailey, Gale Anne Hurd, John Knoll, and Michael Tronick have accepted invitations to join the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, bringing the Council’s 2014–2015 membership roster to 25.
Bailey is a cinematographer with more than four-and-a-half decades of experience behind the camera. His career breakthrough came in 1980, when he served as director of photography on both “American Gigolo” and the Best Picture Oscar winner “Ordinary People.”
His other credits include “The Accidental Tourist,” “Groundhog Day,” “As Good as It Gets,” “Country Strong” and “The Way, Way Back.” Bailey joined the Academy in 1981 and is currently a governor representing the Cinematographers Branch. He was elected to a vice president post this year.
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Hurd is a producer and CEO of her own production company, Valhalla Motion Pictures. Her credits include such films as “Aliens,” “The Terminator” trilogy, “The Abyss,” “Armageddon” and “The Incredible Hulk,” as well as the television series “The Walking Dead.”
A former Academy governor, Hurd has chaired the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Committee, Investment Committee, Producers Branch Executive Committee and Festival Grants Committee. She has been a member of the Producers Branch since 1987.
Knoll is the chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic, where he started out as a technical assistant in 1986. In 1988, he joined forces with his brother Thomas to create the Photoshop image-editing software.
Knoll went on to supervise the visual effects on more than 20 feature films, earning Academy Award nominations for his work on “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” “Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones” and the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films; he took home an Oscar for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” An Academy member since 1997, Knoll is currently a governor representing the Visual Effects Branch.
Tronick is a film editor who began his career as a music editor in the late 1970s. He served both roles for the 1984 feature “Streets of Fire,” and by the end of the decade, he had turned his attention to film editing full-time.
His feature credits include “Midnight Run,” “Days of Thunder,” “Scent of a Woman” “True Romance,” “Remember the Titans,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Hairspray” and “2 Guns.” Tronick currently serves as an Academy governor representing the Film Editors Branch. He has been an Academy member since 1979.
The 2014–2015 Council co-chairs are two members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch: Craig Barron, an Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor and former Academy governor; and Paul Debevec, chief visual officer at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and a lead developer of Light Stage, an image capture and rendering technology for which he received an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award in 2009.
The Council’s 19 other members are Wendy Aylsworth, Rob Bredow, Lisa Churgin, Elizabeth Cohen, Academy governor Richard Edlund, Doug Greenfield, Don Hall, John Hora, Jim Houston, Rob Hummel, Randal Kleiser, Bev Pasterczyk, Josh Pines, Rick Sayre, Milt Shefter, Dave Stump, Steve Sullivan, Academy governor Bill Taylor and Beverly Wood.
Established in 2003 by the Academy’s Board of Governors, the Science and Technology Council provides a forum for the exchange of information, promotes cooperation among diverse technological interests within the industry, sponsors publications, fosters educational activities and preserves the history of science and technology of motion pictures.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the world’s preeminent movie-related organization, with a membership of more than 6,000 men and women working in cinema.
Photo courtesy: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
