Tech wizards find screen magic means Oscar

The 'Mic Rig.' This truck, which has a stripped car on the back, was used in the movie 'The Fast and the Furious.'

(CNN) -- From car chase scenes to underwater action to computer-generated images, movies practically demand that viewers suspend their disbelief. But those special effects can sometimes be so awe-inspiring, they lead to a single, logical question.

How did they do that?

It's the stunt crews, engineers and inventors who create this movie magic, and they're also getting some recognition during this awards season.

Each year, the Motion Picture Academy hands out dozens of Oscars for technical brilliance. These awards usually get only fleeting recognition during the actual Oscar broadcast, but the industry knows how valuable the technical advancements are in creating the images we see on screen.

Two of this year's technical achievement awards went to distinct inventions: a special vehicle used in car chase scenes, and a camera designed for underwater photography.

From the Keystone Kops to "Bullitt" to "The French Connection," moviegoers have been riveted by great car chases for years. And stunt coordinator and director Mic Rodgers has no trouble explaining the chase's popularity.

"It's the modern stagecoach, it's fast, it's exciting," he said. "You can't go fast unless you're in jeopardy. Even if you're the good guy you're breaking the law. And I think the audience gets a release; they get to see people get away with what they wish they could get away with."

RESOURCES How does the "Mic Rig" work? Click here!  • CNN SPECIAL: Academy Award Spotlight 2002

Nearly 15 years ago, Rodgers first came up with an idea for a better, safer way to get actors right in the middle of the action of a chase scene. His longtime friend and colleague Matt Sweeney, a special effects coordinator and structural engineer, took his concept and model and turned it into the "Mic Rig."

"Basically, we got a van and cut the body off, and made our own frame. It's just long enough to accommodate a stripped vehicle. There are no floorboards, so the body probably only weighs about six or seven hundred pounds," said Rodgers.

While the actor or actress goes through the motions of driving, it's really the well-trained stunt driver in the cab of the Mic Rig making the dangerous moves.

Once he saw this vehicle in action, the director of "The Fast and the Furious" only took a moment to decide to use it for the bulk of the movie's chase scenes.

The Remote Aqua Cam, designed by Pete Romano.

Pete Romano specializes in underwater photography. He first learned the trade as a young man in the Navy, and after his military duty, he built equipment for famed marine biologist Jacques Cousteau, a man he calls "an underwater statesman." Cousteau's ocean cinematography, he says, was art.

This year, Romano won a technical achievement award for his design of the Remote Aqua Cam, a device that gives directors and camera operators new freedom and maneuverability in the most difficult circumstances. And, he says, a way to put a little more of that underwater art into Hollywood productions, such as "Pearl Harbor," a movie Romano worked on.

"It allows directors to put the camera in places where they were never able to film before. It has a lower center of gravity, a lower profile, a more hydro-dynamic shape than the standard deep-water camera housings, so it can really glide through the water," he said.

An operator can manipulate the focus, zoom, and iris from a safe (and dry) spot 100 feet away.

Romano didn't stay dry using the camera during the shooting of "Pearl Harbor."

"I'm in full sailor garb and my camera is shrouded in tarps and canvas. I'm swimming and kicking in-between all these people," he said. Romano and his gear were digitally removed from the movie's final cut.

Romano's Los Angeles company, HydroFlex, is a museum of underwater filming: he has a huge collection of movie posters, from "Creature of the Black Lagoon" to "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and he's also owns underwater cameras and housings that date back to the late 1950s.