The Cinema Audio Society has created a new award in memory of Edward J. Greene, a sound vet who earned a remarkable 22 Emmys during his career. He died last summer at the age of 82.
The award will be called the Edward J. Greene Award for the Advancement of Sound and will be presented when the board feels it is merited. The inaugural award will be presented to Tomlinson Holman, a past CAS Career Achievement Award honoree who is credited with creating THX, at the 54th CAS Awards, Feb. 24 at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel.
“The passing of Ed Greene had a profound effect on the CAS and sound community at large. The board of directors and the former presidents wanted a meaningful way to honor Ed’s memory,” said CAS president Mark Ulano. “Presenting this inaugural award to Tomlinson Holman, who has contributed so much to the sound community in both cinema and broadcast, is the perfect representation of who and what this award represents.”
When George Lucas sought a rethink of film systems, Holman was named chief engineer of postproduction at Lucasfilm and was challenged to work on the ends of the chain that would be needed whether it was an analog or digital workflow. He found that for over 30 years, theater sound system technology had stagnated even as many improvements in loudspeaker theory and design had occurred. He evaluated those improvements, invented some new technology, and then combined them into a system that George Lucas named THX, after Holman's initials and the crossover(X) electronics that he invented.
