Matt Cowan and Garrett J. Smith are joining production and consulting service provider Entertainment Technology Consultants in key technology roles. Cowan rejoins the company as chief innovation engineer. Smith will assume the newly created role of senior creative liaison. The two will focus on technology developments that enhance the creation, processing and display of content for the entertainment industry.
In making the announcement, H. Loren Nielsen, ETC president and co-founder, noted, “The industry is evolving rapidly and undergoing a major shift in direction. We need to provide our clients with the expertise and vision to lead. I cannot imagine two people I would rather have on board to help guide the transition than Matt and Garrett. Matt is a world-class scientist in the study of the human visual system and its application to the development of capture and display devices. Garrett’s history in digital mastering is legendary and encompasses most of the important developments in our business, including home video, DVD, Blu-ray and digital cinema.”
Cowan, one of the original co-founders of ETC, is rejoining the company he helped launch in 1995. He will focus on image quality projects related to the next generation of capture, processing and display technologies. Most recently, Cowan held the position of chief scientific officer at RealD, where he was instrumental to the successful development of RealD’s 3D cinema system. He chairs SMPTE’s On Screen Light Measurement study group and regularly teaches color science and digital cinema courses for universities and industry forums. Cowan said, “I am thrilled to be rejoining the ETC team. ETC’s clients are doing some of the most exciting work in the industry, and this is a wonderful opportunity to bring the science of human perception to a host of new technology applications.”
Smith joins ETC after a decades long stint as head of mastering and production technology at Paramount Pictures. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers’ Technology Committee and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council, and a recipient of the ShoWest Digital Cinema Pioneer Award. Smith said, “I’ve had the good fortune of working on some groundbreaking projects during my career, and ETC is engaged in some of the most interesting work going on in the entertainment technology industry today. I’m excited.”
Doug Darrow, senior vice president cinema at Dolby Laboratories and former general manager at DLP Cinema said, “Matt and Garrett bring to ETC a combination of deep scientific knowledge, long-term relationships and an understanding of the industry’s needs. I think this all-star team will impact innovation in the industry.”