During its national board meeting at last week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE) finalized key details for an awards show that will recognize the 10 best-edited commercials of 2000-’01. Plans to launch the first annual competition were announced earlier this year (SHOOT, 1/12, p. 1).
The AICE board also decided to set its sights on the possible formation of three more chapters over the next year in Boston, Detroit and Miami. The AICE currently consists of seven chapters, including two—Atlanta and Minneapolis– which were started in 2000. That pair of new chapters represents the attainment of a goal that came out of last year’s AICE national board meeting at NAB.
National AICE president Jeanne Bonansinga, editor/principal at Edit Sweet, Chicago, noted that additional chapters expand the sense of community among editors and editorial houses nationally. And serving to deepen that sense of community—as well as to foster greater respect for the craft of editing throughout the industry—will be the AICE Editorial Awards, she opined.
"This is the first and only show dedicated to commercial editing," related Bonansinga. "Editors will be judged by their peers—other editors. A prime AICE mission is to heighten awareness of the contribution that the editor makes to a project. The AICE Editorial Awards will go a long way towards helping to realize that goal."
The AICE Editorial Awards will not be broken down into product categories (e.g., best-edited packaged goods commercial, best-edited automobile spot). The quality of the editing will be the only consideration for judges. The work can be local, regional, national or international. However, commercials must have been cut by editors from AICE companies. Only AICE shops are eligible to enter spots into the competition. Each spot must be entered under the banner of the editorial company that the editor worked for when the job was completed. Entry deadline is July 16. The per-spot entry fee is $150.
The AICE board decided that eligible work must have debuted on air between Jan. 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001. Normally, each annual awards show will cover a 12-month span. But this first AICE competition was expanded to 18 months in light of last year’s six-month-long actors’ strike against the advertising industry.
In late August, DVDs containing all entries will be sent by the AICE to its 125 member houses throughout the country. (That number of companies would increase if any or all of the three planned additional chapters are in place by that time.) Editors at the houses will screen the spots and assign scores (on a one-to-five scale, five being best) to each entry. However, editors will not judge those spots in which they or their editorial companies were involved. Bonansinga and AICE national executive director John Held estimated that anywhere from 500 to 600 editors will screen and judge the entries. Chapter houses will return their editors’ judging tallies to the AICE’s New York office in September. An independent accounting firm will tabulate the scores.
According to AICE Editorial Awards chairman Arthur Williams—chairman of the board at New York-headquartered Editing Concepts Inc., and a past AICE/ New York chapter president—a DVD of the 20 to 30 top-scoring spots will be made for a blue-ribbon panel of judges to screen and assess. The blue ribbon panel will consist of 16 editors, 14 agency creatives and/or producers, and four directors.
The 10 best-edited commercials will be determined by the scoring of the blue-ribbon judges; this voting, too, will be independently tabulated. The spots will be honored during a gala AICE Editorial Awards ceremony set for Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers, New York, on Nov. 7. An AICE Editorial Awards statue has been designed and will be bestowed upon each winner.
Jay Thomas will emcee the gala evening, with notable directors and agency creatives scheduled to address the gathering. AICE/New York president Chris Franklin of New York-based Big Sky Editorial will deliver opening remarks, with Bonansinga slated to present the awards. Screened at the ceremony will be not only the honored commercials, but also a film—created by AICE—on the history of commercial editing.
The AICE Editorial Awards committee consists of chairman Williams; Bernadette Quinn, business manager of New York-based Moondog Edit (formerly Billy Williams Enterprises); AICE/Chicago chapter president Bob Carr of Red Car, Chicago; AICE/San Francisco president Jon Ettinger, executive producer of FilmCore, San Francisco; and editor Richard Gillespie of Fast Cuts Edits, Dallas.
NATIONAL UPDATE
During the national board meeting, chapter presidents reported on the state of the business in their communities. Bonansinga related, "Across the board, it seems that business is good, not great. The L.A. market was certainly hurt by the actors’ strike last year. New York is recovering from the strike. San Francisco is starting to come out of the dot-com hangover. Chicago felt a slight decline due to the strike, but often Chicago agencies brought the work—even if shot outside the U.S.—back to Chicago for editing."
Bonansinga added that Atlanta, Dallas and Minneapolis are also holding their own despite some concerns. In Atlanta, for instance, Turner Broadcasting—a source of business for many independent edit houses in Atlanta—is taking much of its post work in-house. This means that Atlanta shops are looking to tap into other potential revenue streams.
Generally, each AICE chapter is experiencing growth. For example, AICE’s Southern California chapter picked up eight additional member companies last year, according to its president, Steve McCoy, principal in FilmCore, Santa Monica.
AICE national board member John Palestrini, CEO of The Blue Rock Editing Company, New York, observed that the overriding feeling at the AICE national session was that "editorial companies more and more realize that the AICE benefits them." He said this feeling is nurtured throughout the year by activities at individual chapters.
For example, chimed in Williams, the New York chapter plans to conduct owner meetings on a more regular basis, so that principals from different companies can compare notes and gain further insights into the marketplace. Also upcoming is a business managers’ meeting in New York.
Bonansinga credited McCoy with succinctly summing up the value of AICE in remarks he made during the national board meeting. "Simply put," said Bonansinga, "Steve pointed out that the AICE is the only organized, collective voice in the industry for commercial editors."
