A Trinity College lecturer will be presented with an Oscar in Los Angeles this weekend, but he's not an actor and is unlikely to appear in the pages of Heat magazine anytime soon.
Dr Anil Kokaram (29) will receive his Oscar at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ceremony for his development of visual effects software for films.
The Scientific and Technical Awards, known in the trade as "the Sci-Techs", are presented by the academy for new devices, methods or inventions "of special and outstanding value to the arts and sciences of motion pictures".
The awards are being held a fortnight ahead of the acting Oscar awards and will be presented by actress Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Edited highlights will be shown during the other academy awards show on February 25th.
Dr Kokaram, who is originally from Trinidad, is a senior lecturer at TCD's electronic and electrical engineering department.
The visual effects and image processing software he developed with the Foundry, a UK software developer, has been used in films such as The Da Vinci Code, Casino Royale, X-Men and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The software performs tasks which were previously very difficult to carry out after production, unless manual editing was used.
Dr Kokaram will receive the award with three members of the Foundry software development team. "I'm not sure exactly what to expect, but we have been told that we have 45 seconds to say something."
He heard about the Oscar win in January but had to make a few phone calls to make sure it was true. "It's very difficult to get this award, especially if you are outside the United States," he said.
Dr Kokaram said people often forgot "the science bit" in the title of the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences but the academy took the awards very seriously, spending six months assessing the entries.
He will fly to Los Angeles today armed with his tuxedo and will be accompanied to the ceremony by his brother. Dr Kokaram said his award had generated great excitement in Trinidad.
"I believe I am the second Caribbean person to receive an Oscar, the first being Sidney Poitier, of course," he said.
