The 2005 Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE) Awards competition is entering its first round of balloting. DVDs of spot entries were sent out earlier this week to editors at AICE-member companies. Editors will screen the entries and their assessments will pare the field down to finalists across 11 categories. The deadline for editors to return their scoring of entries is March 8.
As in years past, only editors from AICE houses are eligible for awards recognition. However, with the recent formation of an AICE chapter in Toronto (SHOOT, 10/22/04, p. 1), this means that for the first time work from Canadian shops can be in the running for the AICE Awards. The Toronto chapter is the AICE’s first chapter outside the U.S.
As earlier reported (SHOOT, 11/5/04, p. 1), the AICE is also exploring the possibility of expansion overseas. This means that the geographic scope of future AICE Award competitions could continue to grow.
After this year’s field of finalists is determined, a blue-ribbon panel of judges will select the winner in each category. At press time that blue-ribbon body–with judges from the editorial, directorial and ad agency communities–was in the process of being assembled. The competition’s editing categories are: Comedy, Dialogue, Graphics, Local Spot, Montage, Music/Sound, PSA, Storytelling, Spec Spot, Visual Effects, and National Campaign.
This year’s AICE Awards and Hall of Fame gala is slated for May 24 at Chelsea Piers in New York. AICE New York chapter president Bernadette Quinn, general manager of Moondog, New York, is the ’05 AICE Awards chairperson.
This is the fourth AICE Show–the inaugural event took place in New York in ’01 and then shifted to Los Angeles in ’02. Those first two shows took place during the last quarter of the year, a schedule which meant that the awards honored editing on spots that debuted during a July through June eligibility period. Rather than hold a November ’03 awards ceremony, AICE officials opted to push back the event some six months so that the competition could be positioned from ’05 on to recognize the best-edited work of the previous calendar year. The ’04 Show covered an 18-month eligibility period (July 1,’02-Dec. 31, ’03) to account for the event’s altered schedule.
Hall of Fame
The AICE Hall of Fame honor was launched in ’94 and held annually until ’01, when the AICE decided to give it a one-year hiatus in order to focus on establishing the AICE Awards competition. The Hall of Fame induction then returned in ’02 (the honoree being editor Jacques Dury) and continues to be coupled with the annual awards gala.
This year’s inductee is a man who inspired the creation of the AICE Hall of Fame: Arthur Williams, whose career spanned more than four decades and involved cutting classic advertising (“I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke”), pioneering new technologies (HD post workflows), founding one of the industry’s most influential post houses (The Tapehouse, New York, which has since closed) and working for the good of the overall editorial community as an AICE leader.
On the latter score, Williams served as AICE New York president from ’90 to ’92 and spent more than a decade on the organization’s board of directors. He chaired both first AICE Hall of Fame Event in ’94 and the first AICE Awards in ’01, which was paired with the Hall of Fame ceremony.
In SHOOT‘s coverage of the announcement that he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in ’05 (SHOOT, 10/1/04, p. 1), Williams related that the rationale behind his decision to assume a prime role in the AICE Awards and Hall of Fame was simple. “I thought it was very important to highlight what editors do–and to elevate the art form. I always felt that the editor was a very pivotal force in the creativity of commercials, but never gets the recognition that is due.”