| Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood has recognized the international importance of the Super-16 system by giving the Swedish cinematographer and innovator Rune Ericson the Award of Commendation; a prestigeous award which has been handed out only five times since its instigation in 1990. The Academy motivates the award as follows:
The Super 16 mm format has achieved a significant impact on the worldwide film industry by playing a major role in empowering low budget films to be produced for theatrical release.
Rune Ericson has been DoP on some sixty Swedish feature films during the past forty years, six of them being at the top of the Swedish box-office all-time record list. In 1965 he started working on the idea of creating a 16 mm production system designed exclusively for blow-ups to 35 mm wide-screen for theatrical release. Through the R&D funds at the Swedish Film Institute he managed to produce a prototype system in 1969. The worlds first Super-16 feature film, "Lyckliga skitar" directed by Vilgot Sjöman and shot by Mr Ericson, was released in Sweden in 1970. The local name for the new system was at that time "Runescope".
The basic idea was brilliantly simple. Use single-perf 16 mm film and exploit the soundtrack area for image recording and you will get a 16 mm wide-screen format with 40 % bigger image area than Standard 16 mm! Early blow-up tests at the Film Teknik laboratory in Stockholm showed very incouraging results. Jean-Pierre Beauviala, the man behind the successful French AATON 16 mm camera, included Super-16 capabilities in his cameras already 1972, which strengthend the Super-16 production chain considerably. Improvements in camera optics, camera and laboratory film stocks and post-production processes gave the Super-16 system considerable international tail-wind in the 1980's. This new production format made it possible not only to achieve striking improvements in 16 mm blow-ups for theatrical release, but also facilitated a new type of creative low budget movies. New forms of story-telling reached the cinema and TV screens. The advent of HDTV, the 16:9 TV format, the "future-safe" aspects of cinematographic film and the digital non-workprint era boosted the demand for Super-16 production tools further during the mid 1990's. Up to date some 900 feature films and TV drama productions have been shot all over the world with the Swedish Super-16 system.
Rune Ericson will recieve his award in Los Angeles March 2nd 2002. For further information please contact Lasse Svanberg, Swedish Film Institute, tel. +46-8 665 12 13, e-mail lasv@sfi.se, Karl-Henrik Råssmo, Kodak Nordic, tel. +46-8 555 636 17, e-mail henke@kodak.com or Rune Ericson, tel +46-8 571 632 20, e-mail rericson@algonet.se.
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