The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee has announced the winners of the 2017 Engineering Excellence Awards. Winners were determined after a judging session held on June 17, after presentations to a panel of industry experts. The coveted honor will be bestowed November 16, 2017 at the 12th annual HPA Awards gala at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
The Engineering Excellence Awards were created to spotlight and reward companies and individuals providing services to the professional media content industry for their outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution and archive. The HPA Awards launched in 2005 to recognize creative artistry, innovation and engineering excellence in the professional media content industry.
Joachim Zell, chair of the HPA Awards Engineering Committee, said, “Entries for the Engineering Awards were at a one of the highest levels ever, on a par with last year’s record breaker, and we saw a variety of serious technologies. The HPA Engineering Excellence Award is meaningful to those who present, those who judge, and the industry. It sounds a bit cliché to say that we had a very tight outcome, and it was a really competitive field this year. Congratulations to the winners and to the nominees for another great year.”
Winners of the 2017 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence are:
Colorfront Engine (Colorfront)
A state-of-the art, automatically managed, ACES-compliant color pipeline which brings plug and play simplicity to today’s complex production requirements, Colorfront Engine ensures image integrity from on-set to the finished product. Colorfront Engine’s Master Look uses a partial subtractive color model and is well-suited for EFX compositing due to its neutral gray scale & offers a perceptually balanced wide range color palette with particular emphasis on good skin tones in varying conditions.
Dolby Vision Post Production Tools (Dolby)
Dolby Vision Post-Production tools integrate into existing color-grading workflows for both cinema and home deliverable grading. The goal is to preserve more of what the camera originally captured and limit creative trade-offs. This is achieved by unique Dolby technology and its leveraging of dynamic metadata shot by shot and frame by frame to preserve dynamic range and the wider color gamut and to best deliver the artistic intent of the filmmakers on multiple different displays.
Mistika VR (SGO)
Mistika technology represents the cutting edge in finishing, offering the most modern, complete and flexible toolsets available today for post-production environments. Mistika Ultima is SGO’s turnkey offering for post production used at some of the biggest post houses in the industry. Mistika VR is SGO’s latest development and is an affordable VR focused solution with real-time stitching capabilities using SGO’s optical flow technology.
WEAPON 8K Vista Vision (RED Digital Cinema)
WEAPON with DRAGON 8K VV sensor delivers stunning resolution and image quality, creating clean and organic images that bring your footage to life. RED has taken the next step in exceeding the flexibility and beauty offered by film. At 35 Megapixels, 8K offers 17x more resolution than HD and over 4x more than 4K.
Honorable Mentions will be awarded to Canon U.S.A. for Critical Viewing Reference Displays and Eizo Inc. for ColorEdge CG318-4K.
In addition to the honors for excellence in engineering, the HPA Awards will recognize excellence in 12 craft categories including color grading, editing, sound and visual effects. Larry Chernoff will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The Judges Award for Creativity and Engineering will be announced by September.
Oscar and Emmy-Winning Composer Kris Bowers Joins Barking Owl For Advertising, Branded Content
Music, audio post and sonic branding house Barking Owl has taken on exclusive representation of Oscar and Emmy-winning composer Kris Bowers for advertising and branded content.
Bowers’ recent film scores include The Wild Robot and Bob Marley: One Love, alongside acclaimed past works such as The Color Purple (2023), King Richard and Green Book. His contributions to television are equally impressive, with scores for hit series like Bridgerton, When They See Us, Dear White People, and his Daytime Emmy Award-winning score for The Snowy Day.
In addition to his work as a composer, Bowers is a visionary director. He recently took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for his directorial work on The Last Repair Shop. The emotionally touching short film spotlights four of the people responsible for repairing the musical instruments used by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The Last Repair Shop reflects the positive influence that musical instruments have on the youngsters who play them, and the adults in the LAUSD free repair service who keep them working and in tune.
Barking Owl CEO Kirkland Alexander Lynch said of Bowers, “His artistry, diversity of style and depth of storytelling bring an unparalleled edge to the work we create for global brands. His presence on our roster reflects our continued commitment to pushing the boundaries of sound and music in advertising.”
Johanna Cranitch, creative director, Barking Owl, added, “Kris first caught my attention when he released his record ‘Heroes + Misfits’ where he fused together his jazz sensibility with a deeply ingrained aptitude for melody, so beautifully.... Read More