The 10th Anniversary AICE Awards were handed out at a gala ceremony in New York tonight, honoring creative excellence in post production. Industry professionals from around the country attended the event, held at 583 Park Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Honors were presented in a variety of categories, judged by panels of AICE editors and designers, ad agency creatives and producers and production company producers and directors.
Awards were handed out in the Automotive, Comedy, Design (incorporating visual effects), Dialogue, Fashion/Beauty, Montage, Music/Sound, Music Video, National Campaign, New/Emerging/Alternative Media, Public Service, Regional Campaign, Spec Spot, Storytelling and Under $50,000 categories. In addition, AICE presented awards recognizing the best work by companies in its Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Toronto chapters.
The list of 2011 AICE Awards winners represents a true sharing of the wealth, as a wide range of editorial houses took home honors tonight. Leading the list were Beast and Big Sky Editorial with four AICE Awards each.
Beast won in the Music/Sound, Spec Spot, Best of Detroit and Best of San Francisco categories, while Big Sky won in the Dialogue, Montage, New/Emerging/Alternative Media and Best of New York categories.
Topping the list of editors was Chris Franklin of Big Sky, who won in the Dialogue, Montage and Best of New York categories for his work on the American Express “Geoffrey Canada” TV spot. Two-time winners included Jim Haygood of Union Editorial, who won in the Automotive and Best of Los Angeles categories for Volkswagen’s “The Force” TV spot, and Stewart Shevin of Beast/Detroit, who won in the Spec Spot and Best of Detroit categories for “Human Trafficking”, made for the web.
In addition to Union, three other editorial companies won two AICE trophies each. Arcade Edit, which won in the National Campaign and Regional Campaign categories; Cut + Run, which won in the Comedy and Design categories; and Rock Paper Scissors, which won in the Fashion/Beauty and Storytelling categories.
The winners list included Steve Gandolfi of Cut + Run, who took the Comedy honors with “Border,” for Coca-Cola; Jay Nelson, also of Cut + Run, who won in Design for the Hyundai “Deprogrammer” spot; Ted Guard of Rock Paper Scissors, who won for his Lee Jeans “Walker” spot in Fashion/Beauty; David Blackburn of Beast/Los Angeles, who won in Music/Sound for Adidas’ “MiCoach” spot; Robert Ryang of P.S. 260, who won in the Music Video category for “Destroy,” for the group Japanese Popstars; Christjan Jordan of Arcade, who took National Campaign honors for Playstation Move, featuring spots titled “Epic,” “What Are You Waiting For?” and “Distractions”; Val Junge and Miky Wolf of Big Sky, who took home the trophy in the New/Emerging/Alternative Media category for an eight-minute film for UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, titled “No Autographs”; Doobie White of Therapy, who won in the Public Service category for “Split Decisions,” for the Alabama District Attorney Association and Zerometh.org; Paul Martinez of Arcade, who won with “Ben,” “Jessica” and “Kevin,” three spots for Montanameth.org in the Regional Campaign category; Angus Wall of Rock Paper Scissors, who won in the Storytelling category with “Hope-Longform” for Xbox Halo’s Reach videogame; and Susan Munro of Hybrid Edit, who won in the Under $50,000 category with the Doritos spot titled “House Sitting.”
Best of Boston honors went to Roy Simonds of Panache Editorial for “Iced Tea” for Four Seasons; Jan Maitland of Utopic picked up the Best of Chicago trophy for “Graphic Artist” for Samsung Mobile; Richard Gillespie of Fast Cuts Edits won the Best of Dallas award for “Paperless Office,” “The Workflow” and “To Do List” for Domtar Paper; Best of Minneapolis honors went to Brody Howard of Ditch for “Fans” for American Standard Heating & Air Conditioning; the Best of San Francisco award went to Doug Walker of Beast/San Francisco for “Ballet” for Intel; and Ross Birchall of Bijou Editorial won the Best of Toronto award for “Arctic Sun” for Tropicana and PepsiCo Canada.
Three new categories were introduced this year. Two of them, the Automotive and Fashion/ Beauty categories, are the competition’s first efforts to recognize and honor post production achievement in specific product categories. AICE also added a Regional Campaign category to recognize achievement in multi-spot campaigns that appear in regional markets only.
AICE also inducted former jumP and Dennis Hayes & Associates partner and editor Barry Stilwell into its Hall of Fame and saluted the winners of its annual Camp Kuleshov trailer editing contests for assistant editors, which were held by AICE chapters around the country.
The AICE Awards presentation returned to New York for its tenth year, which is where the competition originated in 2001. The awards gala rotates each year from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. The AICE Awards Show will head West in 2012 where the gala will be hosted and produced by the Los Angeles Chapter.
All winners can be found on the AICE web site at www.aiceawards.org.
About AICE
AICE is an international association whose members are independent creative editorial, design, visual effects and post production companies and their editors, designers and artists. It is dedicated to the advancement and promotion of these companies and the increasingly significant role their editors, designers and artists play in the media creation process. With chapters in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Toronto, AICE represents a significant segment of the vibrant post production industry, and will continue to maintain its strong collective voice in the commercial advertising and marketing industry. Among its signature initiatives and programs are the annual AICE Awards, which highlights creative excellence on behalf of its member companies; the regular publication of white papers and advisories on relevant trends and developments in post production; and active participation with other industry organizations on the establishment of standards and best practices for the post production process. As a trade organization, AICE will continue to represent the best interests of its members within the advertising and marketing industry as it disseminates information to ad agencies, advertisers and producers on all aspects of editorial, design, visual effects and post production. For more information, visit www.aice.org.
