Thursday, June 29, 2017

The Academy and Its Invitations 2017

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If there had not been such a brouhaha about “diversity” and the “motion picture industry”, I might not have discovered which of my friends and acquaintances have been invited to be members of the Academy. But since the Academy is working hard to include more women and people of color into their membership, the list becomes news, and so I reviewed it.

And there is good news and bad news in it. First and foremost, although it is indeed a kind of honor to be a member of the Academy, and it does entail some nice privileges, it does not mean that because you are a member that (a) you have any power or (b) that you will ever work again. It certainly doesnt hurt though, and it is no small thing to be a member of an elite club. Especially if you live in LA.

Other good news is that a variety of people I know, some of whom are friends, who probably deserve to be a member of the Academy, are indeed invited. In one notable case, which will not be mentioned by name, there is also one person who is a complete dick. But the others arent dicks, and so with our so small sample size in mind, I think this is a fairly good list.

Leaving out the dick, the people I noticed who I know who are on this list include: Rhonda Gunner (a co-founder of Video Image), Carl Ludwig (a founder of Blue Sky), Raymond Yeung (a good person and one of the annointed keepers of the color spaces), Darwyn Peachey of Pixar (with a name like this you are never forgotten), Jinko Gotoh (a producer associated with CGI since before the beginning) and Brooke Breton (a producer who started with Star Trek and has worked on many projects including the various Avatars).

Congratulations to all of them!


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