Zsigmond won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" with Steven Spielberg in 1977.

[3] The Global Cinematography Institute is an educational research and development entity focused on analyzing, preserving and predicting the roles of imagery.

[4] The aim of the school's curriculum is to give cinematographers mastery of both art and technology, so that they can assert that control over the images they capture on set, or in the computer.

Curriculum emphasizes "Expanded Cinematography" which teaches students the basic technological skills necessary to direct imagery inside the 3D worlds of special effects, animation and video games.

[8] Elsewhere, he says "There must be further development of the cinematographer’s profession, making him or her a Cinematographer-Artist-Designer-Technologist who is able to comprehend and solve any tasks which modern production can put in front of them.