Search form

Maltz to Head Academy's New Science and Tech Council

Andrew Maltz, former president/ceo of Avica Technology Corp., has been named director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' new Science and Technology Council.

Maltz has been involved with entertainment technology management, business development and system design for nearly a quarter of a century. At Avica he led the deployment of the world's largest installed base of digital cinema servers, drove the development of key technologies for digital cinema such as encryption, compression, mastering and distribution, and was heavily involved with the digital releases of many major motion pictures in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

As the first director of the Academy's new Science and Technology Council, Maltz will be in charge of hiring staff and setting up the Council's operation, which will be housed at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood.

Among its anticipated functions, the Council will be charged with monitoring the current state of technology, facilitating understanding of new technological developments, presenting educational programs on the technology of motion pictures and developing a database of the history of film technology.

An electrical engineering graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo, Maltz served as with Avica for the past four years. From 1985 through 1994 he was exec vp of operations and engineering for nonlinear editing pioneer Ediflex Digital Systems, and later served for five years as a consultant to companies such as Microsoft and Sharp Electronics Corp.

Bill Desowitz's picture

Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.