Ukrainian Canadian computer animator wins Oscar for technical achievement (01/26/97)

Ukrainian Canadian computer animator wins Oscar for technical achievement

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - Twenty-eight years ago, Nestor Burtnyk went to Hollywood hoping to learn something about animation.

On March 1 the 68-year-old former scientist with Canada's National Research Council will return to receive an Academy Award for his pioneering work in the field.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on January 7 that Mr. Burtnyk and his former colleague, Marceli Wein, were each awarded an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. The two will receive a plaque for their achievement, as opposed to the Oscar statuette that actors, screenwriters and a director will receive at the 69th ceremony to be televised on March 24.

"There's no doubt that you can trace the origin of the industry that we enjoy now to their early work in computer animation," said the NRC's Dick Doyle, who nominated the pair for the Academy Award. "They inspired a lot of people to go into the multi-million dollar computer animation industry. When you look at films like [Disney's] 'Toy Story' - they built on what they did."

The son of parents who emigrated to Canada from western Ukraine, Mr. Burtnyk was born in Ethelbert, Manitoba. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Manitoba in 1950 - the year he joined the NRC. At the time he was involved in neither film-making nor in anything associated with cartoon-drawing.

As an employee of the council's Division of Radio and Electrical Engineering's Data Systems Group, Mr. Burtnyk began tinkering with computers during what was their infancy stage in the 1960s. He and Dr. Wein, a physicist, built the first computer mouse - made of wood - in Canada.

In 1969, Mr. Burtnyk attended a conference in California where Disney studio animators discussed their craft. "They said there were principal animators and so-called in-betweeners who handled the fill-in, secondary animation," recalled Mr. Burtnyk, who lives in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata. "Well, I never had an artistic inclination, but I came back to Ottawa thinking the computer could serve as an in-betweener and help animators fill in the holes to their work."

With Dr. Wein, Mr. Burtnyk developed a system known as key-frame animation, in which the computer would imitate conventional celanimation, where mini-images (such as segments of a figure) are drawn on film and layered together to form a complete image. Armed with archaic computers equipped with only 12 kilobits of memory - less than what's required to even boot up today's versions - the duo set out to create a computer animation system that would result in simulating the artist's drawing table.

"Nestor saw real potential for a computer to do the grunt work in filling in the many frames in between the key frames, while still using artists to do the major frames in an animation," explained Mr. Doyle.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Burtnyk collaborated with animator Peter Foldes of the National Film Board of Canada to use his key-frame animation technique in an experimental film called "Metadada."

Another one - the 11-minute feature "Hunger," about world hunger and poverty, which took 18 months of production - followed. It became the first computer-animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Short in 1974. Though that Academy Award eluded Mr. Burtnyk and the NFB, the team won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

In 1974 Mr. Burtnyk became head of the Data Systems Section, which evolved into the Computer Graphics Section. Although "Hunger" would mark his final filmic contribution, his work in the medium that led to the historic movie breakthrough was far from over. In 1979, Mr. Burtnyk became manager of the NRC's newly formed Computer Technology Research Program, where he worked on projects in intelligent robotics and the development of the 3-D laser camera.

Three years later he was named head of the council's Computing Technology Section where he led research in the area of computer-generated architectural design. After serving the NRC for 44 years, Mr. Burtnyk retired from the council's Institute for Information Technology in 1995.

Last year, he and Dr. Wein, who lives in Kingston, Ontario, were honored as "Fathers of Computer Animation Technology in Canada" at the Computer Animation Festival held in Toronto.

On February 19 the NRC will host a special evening in celebration of the two retirees' Academy Award achievement - less than two weeks before the big day in Beverly Hills (where the academy is based).

"Last year, Tom Hanks presented the technical awards," noted Mr. Doyle. "I have this picture of Sharon Stone presenting Marceli with his and Demi Moore giving the award to Nestor."

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