The symbol of film’s highest achievement, the golden statuette Oscar, is getting a makeover for the 2017 Academy Awards.
The film academy announced that a New York foundry is restoring features of the original 1929 design to the Oscar statuettes using digital scans and 3-D printers.
It took Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry three months to make the 50 statuettes needed for the ceremony using the high-tech process.
Oscar was previously made in a more traditional way by Chicago’s R.S. Owens & Company, the academy’s foundry for the past 34 years.
The 3-D printing method makes the process quicker, according to Daniel Plonski, the company’s 3-D artist, and also allows it to be faithful to the art deco original.
People around the world are using 3-D printers to spark creativity and build businesses.
Oscar is still plated in 24-karat gold, and the dimensions remain the same: He’s 34 centimeters tall and weighs 3.9 kilograms. The statuette earned its nickname from an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences librarian, Margaret Herrick, who remarked that the figure looked a lot like her uncle Oscar.
The gleaming statuettes will be on display at the 89th Academy Awards on February 26 in Los Angeles.
