Call for entries issued for 2014 competition
AICE has announced the call for entries for the 13th annual AICE Awards competition, which honors postproduction industry creative achievements in the US and Canada. The 2014 AICE Awards includes 21 categories, 16 for editorial and five for other postproduction crafts such as audio mixing and color grading. Winners will be announced at the AICE Awards Show, set for Thursday, May 15, 2014, at Guastavino’s on the East Side of Manhattan.
The deadline for entries is Friday, February 14, 2014. Full descriptions of categories and entry requirements can be found at www.aice.org.
For the first time a Best of Show winner will be chosen from among all the winners by the AICE Awards Curatorial Committee. Craig Lewandowski, an editor at Optimus, Chicago and a member of the AICE Awards Committee, predicts heightened anticipation with the introduction of the Best of Show award. “There’s something really cool about getting a Best of Show award in a competition,” he said. “It’s great to be honored in the category you enter, but there’s always a lot of anticipation around who’ll be named Best of Show. We’re expecting a lot of excitement around the addition of this new feature to the awards.”
Lewandowski and fellow committee members Chris Franklin, editor and owner of Big Sky Editorial in New York, and Bob Spector, editor at Beast in San Francisco, revised and updated the category definitions so they align more closely with the ever-changing media landscape. For example, the Alternative Media category was broadened and a new Online Campaign category was added.
“We’ve taken what used to be one category for Alternative Media and broken it into sections that better describe the types of projects our members are working on,” Lewandowski explained. Aimed at work that has been commissioned by a client specifically for an alternative (i.e., non-broadcast) media platform such as the web, there will now be two separate categories, one for entries under 90-seconds in length and the other for entries over 90-seconds.
“The committee worked hard to refine the category definitions based on the feedback we’ve received from our members,” said Burke Moody, executive director of AICE. “They arrived at these new time distinctions for Alternative Media because it is difficult to make compare and judge a 30-second piece and an eight-minute piece in the same category.”
The Online Campaign category requires three spots created specifically for alternative media distribution, which are submitted and judged together as a whole, just like the National and Regional Campaign categories. The Online Campaign category is significant in that works created for the web are seen by an audience that typically exceeds a Regional or National campaign reach.
“Our members wanted to enter campaigns that were built for the internet, and an internet campaign, by definition, is global–it’s not dependent upon a broadcast, cable or satellite signal,” said Moody. “So the Online Campaign category was added in response to what we were hearing from our members.”
“More and more people are editing pieces that are either meant for multiple channels or will never be broadcast at all,” said Lewandowski. “We believe these changes give people more options for where and how to enter their work.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More