Beverly Hills, California, US: From the team who made it possible to digitally curl and trim outrageous hair in ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy to the inventors of a high-speed car chase camera used in James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’, some of the most ingenious behind-the-scenes innovators were celebrated at a pre-Oscars ceremony on Saturday night.

Two weeks before the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards to the visual effects, sound and technical wizards whose work behind the camera is a vital but often unheralded part of making movies.

While the Academy Awards on 22 February will present Oscars to actors, directors and others who worked on films released in 2014, the yearly scientific and technical awards honour those who have contributed to the process of film making over a longer period of time, sometimes decades.

Presenting the awards were a pair who have had recent breakthrough roles in front of the camera: Margot Robbie, in ‘The Wolf of Wolf Street’, and Miles Teller, the star of ‘Whiplash’, a current best picture nominee. Robbie thanked the audience for making movies ‘stunning’.

The Beverly Hills event gave awards to 58 individuals for 21 scientific and technical achievements. These usually consist of plaques or certificates but on Saturday two Oscar statuettes were presented, one to veteran sound engineer and Dolby Laboratories executive David W Gray for his ground‑breaking work on movie sound.