The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA®) has opened its call for entries for the Engineering Excellence Award. Now in its 13th year, the HPA Engineering Excellence Award is considered one of the most important technology honors in the industry, spotlighting companies and individuals who draw upon technical and creative ingenuity to develop breakthrough technologies. Submissions will close on May 25, 2018.
Joachim Zell, VP of technology for EFILM and chair of the HPA Engineering Excellence Award Committee, said, “Artistic vision is what drives the technical and engineering processes that bring that vision to life. Ultimately, our work is fundamentally about helping filmmakers realize their vision. The companies and individuals supporting creative storytellers face constant pressure to evolve to expand the creative palette. Their contribution to the entertainment industry cannot be overstated. The Engineering Excellence Award is a highly competitive honor, and the past winners have changed the course of entertainment technology. We encourage the submission of your significant technological achievements.”
Entrants for this peer-judged award may include products or processes, and must represent a significant step forward for its industry beneficiaries. Past winners have included Aspera, Canon, Colorfront, Dolby, The Foundry/Sony Pictures Imageworks, MACOM, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Quantel, and RED Digital Cinema. Rules and procedures can be found here.
Applicants present to a blue-ribbon industry panel. Presentations will take place on a Saturday in June in Los Angeles. More information about the presentation dates and location will be announced soon.
Entries for the Engineering Excellence Award will be accepted until May 25. Winners will be announced in advance, and honors presented during the HPA Awards gala on the evening of November 15, 2018 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
In addition, the HPA Awards will again honor important craft categories including Outstanding Color Grading, Editing, Sound and Visual Effects for feature film, television and commercials. The call for entries in these creative categories will be announced in May.
For more information about the HPA Awards, including complete rules, guidelines and entry information, click here.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More