LAUNCH

“Avatar” creator James Cameron couldn’t do what he does without them — the science and technical guys, that is. Lake Highlands’ BRAD WALKER and his team are the brains behind some of cinema’s most impressive new technology, and for that they were last month awarded the Academy Award for science and technology for their design and refinement of a projector that allows directors to immediately and accurately view what they’ve just filmed. The technology saves moviemakers valuable time and contributes to the ever-evolving quality of the images we see on the big screen.

Can you explain in laymen5s terms what you and your team developed that garnered you an Oscar?

I’ll try. I was the systems lead for a team at Texas Instruments that developed a movie projector for digital cinema. The projector basically allows movie production companies to get an accurate look at what the finished film will look like; this cuts out extra days worth of printing and fixing color especially for producers of special effects movies in which the color is very important this way, they can see what they have and fix it right there ... You might compare it to the pre-press stage of magazine production, but for digital film. You end up being able to do it faster, more accurately and with better results.