Kimball was in technology development and support on 1994 feature The Lion King, one of many films he oversaw in that capacity for Disney. © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Kimball recalls that one of the precursors for the current focus on digital humans actually happened at Disney with the work that CG pioneer Lance Williams did for the Human Face project. "That was for The Genesis Man," says Kimball, referring to a never-made film that required visualizing different ages of an actor's face. "A lot of what Lance was working on then has been picked up. I'm sure that what he described has fed into work elsewhere. The thing about good ideas is that they will eventually make it out."

As co-chair of the Digital Imaging Subcommittee at the Academy, Kimball stays very current on the latest technologies, many of which are regularly considered for Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards. "I got involved with the founding of this subcommittee along with Ray Feeney and Dave Inglish and others. People sitting in that room are competitors on one level and yet we come together to do these investigations. It is a passion within the group that we have to get this right."

In recent years as the Academy has honored larger numbers of software innovations, an effort has been made to honor foundational research as well as the applications that are put forth by visual effects companies. This has been particularly notable in areas like water and cloth simulation and subsurface scattering. "We want to find out the roots of an idea and to look for the 'aha moment,'" says Kimball. "That's what we're looking to honor."

It can be a painstaking process to trace technological breakthroughs back to their source, and Kimball notes, "The Digital Imaging Technology Subcommittee works year-round when needed, and then brings recommendations back to the awards committee. Digital systems are extremely complex and hard to evaluate in the standard six to eight weeks from the time that applications come in to the time we have to make determinations. But we're in a fortunate position, because unlike the arts side of the Academy, we don't need to award 'The Best Technical Innovation of 2008.' The time horizon is too short for that. Very often we are looking at things that are a few years in the past."

But Kimball admits, "You can see several things on the horizon. We have typically 16 or 18 members spread out across the industry in technology areas. We have an amazing span of leads where we are looking. An area of investigation that was taken on this year is the studios' underlying technologies for digital intermediates. It's a very big area."

When Kimball reflects on how much his career interests changed since he left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1980 to join Disney, he has to laugh. "It's been gigantic. When I was working on the Deep Space Network at JPL, I was worrying about getting signals back from Mars and needing to carry things out to 14 decimal points. Then I found myself in an environment where I didn't have to carry out anything out to any decimal places. I just had to make things look good.

"From a career perspective, it's been a fascinating timeline, watching technology come of age and be able to see what artists could do with that technology and move the art forward. It took a real push very often to be able to do that. I've always believed that those of us centered in technology have been able to offer advancements, and I don't see that progression slowing down."

Ellen Wolff is a southern California-based writer whose articles have appeared in other publications, including Daily Variety, Millimeter, Animation Magazine, Video Systems and the website CreativePlanet.com. Her areas of special interest are computer animation and digital visual effects.