The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) honored three student filmmakers this past weekend (10/15) at its annual student awards presentation, held at the organization’s clubhouse. The competition is designed to highlight the work of emerging talent, and inspire the next generation of filmmakers.
The winners are:
ASC Vilmos Zsigmond Student Heritage Award, Graduate Category
Andrew Jeric from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts for Prisoner
ASC Vilmos Zsigmond Student Heritage Award, Undergraduate Category
Emmett Sutherland from the Art Center College of Design for Closer
ASC Haskell Wexler Student Award, Documentary Category
Colin F. Shepherd of the Rochester Institute of Technology for Into the Microscope
A panel of prestigious ASC members judged the entries. Jeric, Sutherland and Shephard were selected from 18 nominees for demonstrating their exceptional abilities in cinematography in their submitted works.
“It’s exciting to see the incredible level of artistry coming out of film schools,” said Kees van Oostrum, ASC president. “It was difficult to choose among the large pool of talent, but these students have achieved what our members saw to be a professional level of visual storytelling. We hope to encourage them to continue on their career path in filmmaking.”
The ASC Student Heritage Awards are renamed annually in memory of an extraordinary ASC member. This year, the awards are dedicated to two cinematic legends: Zsigmond and Wexler.
Zsigmond won an Academy Award® for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and earned additional nominations for The Deer Hunter (1979), The River (1985) and The Black Dahlia (2007). He also won an Emmy® for shooting the HBO movie Stalin (1993).
Wexler began his career shooting documentaries and remained a passionate documentarian. He earned Academy Awards® for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976), and also received nominations for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (shared with Bill Butler, ASC), Matewan and Blaze. In 1969, Wexler wrote, directed and shot Medium Cool, which is studied by film students worldwide for its cinéma vérité style.
The ASC Student Awards were inaugurated in 1999, with the Documentary category added in 2012. Past winners were Lisa Wiegand, ASC; Lukas Ettlin; Masanobu Takayanagi, ASC; Nelson Cragg; and Benji Bakshi, among many others who have become directors of photography or carved out careers in the filmmaking industry.
