Kodak Scientists Recognized for Excellence

Once a year the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recognizes technologists from around the world for their contributions to the Entertainment Industry. This year, two Kodak scientists will receive honors from the organization.

Chris DuMont, director, Advanced Development and Systems Engineering for Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division has been awarded the Technicolor-Herbert T. Kalmus Gold Medal Award by SMPTE. This award recognizes outstanding contributions in the development of color films, processing, techniques or equipment useful in making color motion pictures.

DuMont is a SMPTE Fellow, with a B.S. from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Imaging Science, and an M.S. in Analytical Chemistry, also from RIT. He has worked at Kodak for over 21 years and in motion picture systems studies for the last 19 years, developing new negative, intermediate, hybrid and digital products for use in the motion picture industry. His most recent contributions have been a systems design for the new Kodak Color Management systems. DuMont has authored and presented at numerous SMPTE conferences. He was a 2003 and 2004 SMPTE Journal Award co-recipient. He holds nine patents in the motion picture imaging science field for Eastman Kodak.

On winning the Kalmus Award, Dumont stated, "I'm really kind of in awe to be in such elite company. I have books by a bunch of these guys!"

"I'm also very thankful to Kodak for enabling me to do the kind of technical work that is being recognized," he added. "I think I'm possibly the 18th employee from Kodak to be a Herbert Kalmus recipient. I'm very proud to be part of such a rich heritage of technical innovation."

Originating in 1956, the Herbert T. Kalmus Gold Medal Award has been given to many preeminent industry professionals. The first person to ever receive this award was an early Kodak innovator, Buddy Hanson. Since the year 2000, five out of seven of those awards have been given to Kodak employees.

This year, Dr. Tom Maier, Kodak Research Fellow, has been named a Fellow of the SMPTE. This designation is limited to those who have a sustained level of significant technical contributions to the industry.

Like many Kodak scientists, Dr. Maier's expertise spans numerous disciplines that can be applied to a variety of projects. He is highly skilled at judging the quality of images, understanding the causes of poor image quality, and knowing how to improve image quality. His work has been vital in the film realm. It is equally important in the hybrid and digital realm, for example by creating digital files that are used in the production of film samples for telecine calibration or defining algorithms to optimize the color quality in our software applications (such as those for digital cinema).

Dr. Maier most recently authored the Engineering Guideline for Color Processing for Digital Cinema in support of DC-28. This document defines color- processing standards for digital cinema.

Several members of our R&D team have also received SMPTE journal awards for articles submitted in 2006. Gabe Fielding, Ryan Hsu, Paul Jones, and Chris DuMont won the award for Aliasing and Reconstruction Distortion in Digital Intermediates (SMPTE Journal April 2006). David Long and Tom Maier received the runner-up Award for Designing Camera Origination Films for Scan-Only Applications (SMPTE Journal April 2006).

In addition to reflecting the individual excellence of each scientist, these awards underscore Kodak's continuing technical leadership in our industry -- from film research to all Kodak's contributions in digital cinema, scanners and recorders.

As Kodak works to ensure better quality images, improved efficiencies and workflow, and lower costs, they are also protecting creative control for our filmmaker customers. This will always be relevant, because no matter how much the value chain evolves, this business will always be about creativity -- and filmmakers do not want to struggle with technology as they strive to achieve their visions.