The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee has unveiled the winners of the 2021 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence. The HPA Awards, including the HPA Award for Engineering Excellence, will be bestowed on November 18 during a live gala at the Hollywood Legion.
The winners of the 2021 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:
- The Arch Platform – Arch Platform Technologies. The Arch Platform allows users to spin up powerful cloud-based digital content creation facilities for visual effects, post-production, virtual production and other collaborative creative endeavors in under an hour.
- OpenColorIO v.2 – Autodesk. Autodesk has led a major rejuvenation of the widely used open source project OpenColorIO, the first major upgrade in the decade since its original release. The new version, OpenColorIO v2, includes the following contributions from Autodesk: Development of state-of-the-art color processing technology; Leadership of the re-birth of the project and help in transitioning it successfully into the Academy Software Foundation; and greatly improved support for ACES, providing the industry with a free open source ACES implementation capable of very high quality real-time processing and complete support for the Academy/ASC Common LUT Format (CLF).
- Nuke – The Foundry. Nuke® is a node-based compositing toolkit that gives artists the power and flexibility to create with confidence. Flexible, efficient, feature-packed, and highly customizable, this toolset delivers film-grade results fast for compositors, lighters and animators.
- NearTime – Mo-Sys Engineering. NearTime from Mo-Sys Engineering is a workflow for virtual production, meeting the key requirements of cast and crew to see the full effect of the shot on-set in real-time, delivering a higher-quality version of the shot, completely automated, and in a timescale which matches the practical requirements of the production – "near-time."
Honorable mention was awarded to Colorfront LLC for Colorfront Streaming Server and Deluxe for Deluxe One Dub.
The HPA Awards recognize creative artistry and innovation in the professional media content industry. A coveted and highly competitive honor, the Engineering Excellence Award rewards outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution, and archive.
The process to be considered for an HPA Engineering Excellence Award included a pre-recorded video presentation, followed by a Q&A with the judging panel and the submitters. Judging took place online again this year, with a blue-ribbon panel of judges.
HPA Awards Engineering Committee Chair Joachim Zell said, “This year’s entries showed us again that the companies from our industry are creating innovative, thoughtful products and solutions for new problems, some of which were brought on by the circumstances of the past year, and others addressing non-pandemic problems. Judging day presentations reminded us of the breadth and depth of expertise and creativity in our industry, showing us what is possible for us to accomplish. Congratulations to the winners, and all the entrants, all of whom have much to be proud of.”
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