Held in the historic Hollywood Legion Theater on Thursday night (11/18), the 2021 HPA Awards celebrated exceptional work in color grading, sound, editing, and visual effects in commercial, episodic, and feature projects.
Among the winners were colorists for the feature “Jungle Cruise,” streaming series “WandaVision,” and the Tarsem-directed Toyota Super Bowl spot “Upstream; editors on “Sound of Metal” and streaming series “Hacks”; sound artisans for “Space Jam: A New Legacy” and the TV show “Snowpiercer”; and VFX teams on “Black Widow” and streaming series “The Mandalorian.”
Returning to a sold-out gala after a virtual event in 2020, this year’s HPA Awards brought Hollywood golden era flavor to 2021. Presenters for the evening included Barry Meyer, Karol Urban, Anna Behlmer, Brooke Breton, Sabrina Plisco, and Patricia Riggen.
The winners of the 2021 HPA Awards Creative Categories are:
Outstanding Color Grading – Theatrical Feature
“Jungle Cruise”
Mitch Paulson // Company 3
Outstanding Color Grading – Episodic or Non-Theatrical Feature
“WandaVision – Previously On”
Matt Watson // Marvel Studios Finishing
Outstanding Color Grading – Commercial
Toyota – “Jessica Long’s Story: Upstream”
Jill Bogdanowicz // Company 3
Outstanding Editing – Theatrical Feature
“Sound of Metal”
Mikkel E. G. Nielsen, ACE
Outstanding Editing – Episodic or Non-Theatrical Feature (30 Minutes and Under)
“Hacks – Falling”
Susan Vaill, ACE
Outstanding Editing – Episodic or Non-Theatrical Feature (Over 30 Minutes)
“A Perfect Planet: The Sun”
Nigel Buck
Outstanding Sound – Theatrical Feature
“Space Jam: A New Legacy”
Tim LeBlanc, Michael Keller // Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services
Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, Malte Bieler // E Squared
Outstanding Sound – Episodic or Non-Theatrical Feature
“Snowpiercer – Many Miles from Snowpiercer”
Sandra Portman, Kelly Cole, Bill Mellow, James Fonnyadt, Eric Mouawad, Gregorio Gomez // Sharpe Sound Studios
Outstanding Visual Effects – Theatrical Feature
“Black Widow”
David Hodgins, Hanzhi Tang, Ryan Duhaime, James Reid, Edmond Smith III // Digital Domain
Outstanding Visual Effects – Episodic (Under 13 Episodes) or Non-theatrical Feature
“The Mandalorian – Chapter 9: The Marshal”
Joe Bauer, Richard Bluff, Abbigail Keller, Hal Hickel, Jeff Capogreco // Industrial Light & Magic
Outstanding Visual Effects – Episodic (Over 13 Episodes)
“9-1-1 – The New Abnormal”
Jon Massey, Tony Pirzadeh, Timothy Cairns, Bryant Reif, Josephine Noh // FuseFX
Special honors
The Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation, a juried honor, was awarded to the acclaimed documentary “Welcome to Chechnya” and to its director, David France, and visual effects supervisor, Ryan Laney. Industry veteran Darcy Antonellis received The HPA Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to her by former Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer.
Winners of the coveted Engineering Excellence Award, announced previously, include the Arch Platform by Arch Platform Technologies, OpenColorIO v.2 by Autodesk, Nuke by Foundry, and NearTime by Mo-Sys Engineering.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More