Hollywood Post Alliance Reveals Winners at 10th Annual Awards

Steven J. Scott of Technicolor won his sixth Hollywood Post Alliance Award in the feature color grading category, this time on the strength of his work on Birdman, Thursday during the 10th annual HPA Awards at Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center.

During the evening, awards were handed out in 12 categories covering color grading, editing, sound and visual effects. Additional repeat winners included the VFX team on Game of Thrones, which won its third consecutive award in the television visual effects competition.

Fitting for its 10th anniversary celebration, HPA honored its founding and current president Leon D. Silverman with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The postproduction veteran is general manager of the digital studio for the Walt Disney Studios. Earlier, he spent two decades at LaserPacific Media Corp.

The HPA Awards’ qualification period runs from September through September, meaning some of last year’s awards season films competed with this year’s hopefuls.

In features, Oscar winning editor Tom Cross was honored for Whiplash, and Oscar winning sound team was recognized for American Sniper. Weta’s Oscar nominated work in The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies topped the VFX category.

In television, Homeland was honored for sound, Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways for editing and Boardwalk Empire for color grading. Awards were additionally handed out for commercials.

Past HPA honorees that presented awards during the evening included 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award winner and Oscar winning editor Alan Heim, and 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award winner and Fox’s president of post-production Ted Gagliano. Additional presenters included two-time Oscar winning production designer and Maleficent director Robert Stromberg, Emmy winning Breaking Bad editor Skip MacDonald, and recently retired Efilm managing director Beverly Wood.

Also during the evening, five technologies were recognized for engineering excellence. As previously announced, they are: Canon’s Super 35 mm 4K cinema zoom lens, Dolby’s Dolby Vision high dynamic range laser projection system, Panasonic’s Super 35 mm 4K DCI imager, Sam’s Quantel Rio postproduction system, and Sony’s BVMX300 30-inch 4K OLED monitor. Colorfront received an honorable mention for its Interactive HFR (high frame rate) Frame-Blending.

ESPN received the Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation, for its ESPN Digital Center 2 in Bristol, CT, which at launch was widely recognized as the first large scale, IP-based production facility.

A complete list of winners follows:

Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film

 

“Birdman”           

Steven J. Scott // Technicolor

 

Outstanding Color Grading – Television

 

“Boardwalk Empire – Golden Days for Boys and Girls”            

John Crowley // Technicolor PostWorks NY

 

Outstanding Color Grading – Commercial   

 

Lincoln – “Intro”           

Tom Poole // Company 3

           

Outstanding Editing – Feature Film

 

“Whiplash”

            Tom Cross, ACE

 

Outstanding Editing – Television

 

“Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways – Nashville”

Kristin McCasey // Therapy Studios

 

Outstanding Editing – Commercial

 

GNP Seguros – “World Cup”

Doobie White // Therapy Studios

 

Outstanding Sound– Feature Film

 

“American Sniper”

Alan Murray, Tom Ozanich, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff // Warner Bros. Post Production Services

 

Outstanding Sound – Television

 

“Homeland– Redux“

Nello Torri, Alan Decker // NBCUniversal StudioPost

Craig Dellinger // Sony Sound Services

 

Outstanding Sound – Commercial 

 

The Syria Campaign – “In Reverse”

Jon Clarke // Factory

 

Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film

 

“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”

Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White, Matt Aitken // Weta Digital

 

Outstanding Visual Effects – Television

 

“Game of Thrones – The Dance of Dragons”

Joe Bauer, Steve Kullback, Derek Spears, Eric Carney, Jabbar Raisani // Fire and Blood Productions

 

Outstanding Visual Effects – Commercial

 

“Game Of War – Decisions”

Benjamin Walsh, Brian Burke, Ian Holland, Brandon Nelson // Method Studios

 

HPA Engineering Excellence Award – Sponsored by NAB Show

Canon – 4K Cine Zoom Lens

Dolby – Dolby Vision™ Projector

Panasonic – 4K Camera Imagers

Quantel – Pablo Rio 8K

Sony Electronics – BVMX300 Monitor

 

Honorable Mention – Colorfront, Interactive HFR Frame-Blending

 

HPA Judges Award For Creativity And Innovation  

ESPN – ESPN Digital Center 2   

 

HPA Lifetime Achievement Award

Leon D. Silverman