LOS ANGELES — The 13th annual Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards (www.hpaonline.com) took place last night, honoring the accomplishments of industry luminaries, behind-the-scenes artists and outstanding engineering teams. The HPA Awards set the bar for creative and technical achievement, recognizing individuals and companies for outstanding contributions made in the creation of feature films, television, commercials, and entertainment content enjoyed around the world.
Awards were given to talented individuals and teams working in 12 creative craft categories, including color grading, sound, editing and visual effects for commercials, television and feature film. Victoria Alonso, EVP production of Marvel, was honored with the HPA Charles S. Swartz Award, and special awards were presented for Engineering Excellence.
The many social movements, including #metoo, of the past year that effectively harnessed the power of technology to bring positive change to our industry were also acknowledged during the show.
The winners of the 2018 HPA Awards are:
Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film
WINNER: “Alpha”
Maxine Gervais // Technicolor – Hollywood
“Avengers: Infinity War” Steven J. Scott, Charles Bunnag // Technicolor – Hollywood
“Red Sparrow” Dave Hussey // Company 3
“The Shape of Water” Chris Wallace // Deluxe – Toronto
“The Greatest Showman” Tim Stipan // Company 3
Outstanding Color Grading – Television
WINNER: “The Crown – Paterfamilias"
Asa Shoul // Molinare
“Damnation – Sam Riley’s Body” Paul Allia // Picture Shop
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – Pilot” Steven Bodner // Light Iron
“Game of Thrones – Beyond the Wall” Joe Finley // Sim
“The Crossing – Pilot” Tony Smith // Picture Shop
Outstanding Color Grading – Commercial
WINNER (TIE): Volkswagen – "Kids’ Dreams"
Adam Scott // The Mill
WINNER (TIE): Zara – "Spring/Summer 2018 Main"
Tim Masick // Company 3
Bottega Veneta – "Spring/Summer 2018 Trailer" Tim Masick // Company 3
Tile – "Lost Panda" Tom Poole // Company 3
Audi – "Final Breath" Sofie Borup // Company 3
Outstanding Editing – Feature Film
Sponsored by Blackmagic Design
WINNER: “A Quiet Place”
Christopher Tellefsen, ACE
“Coco” Steve Bloom
“You Were Never Really Here” Joe Bini
“Mission: Impossible – Fallout” Eddie Hamilton, ACE
“Believer” Demian Fenton
Outstanding Editing – Television (30 Minutes and Under)
Sponsored by Blackmagic Design
WINNER: “VICE – After the Fall”
Kelly Kendrick // Vice
“The End of the F***ing World – Episode One” Mike Jones
“Vida – Episode 6” JoAnne Yarrow
“Barry – Chapter Eight: Know Your Truth" Kyle Reiter
“Vice Principals –The Union of the Wizard and The Warrior" Justin Bourret
Outstanding Editing – Television (Over 30 Minutes)
Sponsored by Blackmagic Design
WINNER: “The Defiant Ones – Part 2”
Doug Pray, Lasse Järvi
“Stranger Things – Chapter Nine: The Gate” Kevin D. Ross, ACE
“Game of Thrones – The Dragon and the Wolf” Crispin Green
“Westworld – The Passenger” Anna Hauger, Mako Kamitsuna, MPEG, Andrew Seklir, ACE
“Counterpart – The Crossing" Dana E. Glauberman, ACE
Outstanding Sound – Feature Film
WINNER: “The Shape of Water”
Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern, Nelson Ferreira, Nathan Robitaille // Deluxe - Toronto
“Ant-Man and The Wasp” Katy Wood, Addison Teague, Juan Peralta, Tom Johnson // Skywalker Sound
“Avengers: Infinity War” Shannon Mills, Tom Johnson, Juan Peralta, Dan Laurie // Skywalker Sound
“Blade Runner 2049” Mark Mangini, Ron Bartlett, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill, Mac Ruth // Formosa Group
“Black Panther” Benjamin A. Burtt, Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor // Skywalker Sound
Outstanding Sound – Television
WINNER: “Altered Carbon – Out of The Past”
Brett Hinton, Mark Allen, Owen Granich-Young, Andy King, Keith Rogers // Atomic Sound
“Yellowstone – Daybreak” Alan Robert Murray, Tim LeBlanc, Dean Zupancic // Warner Bros.
“Waco – Operation Showtime” Craig Mann, Kelly Oxford, Laura Wiest, Karen Vassar Triest, David Brownlow, Beau Borders // Technicolor – Hollywood
“Dark – Secret” Alexander Würtz, Achim Hofmann, Jorg Elsner, Christian Bichoff // ARRI Media GmbH Ansgar Frerich // Basis Berlin
“Yellowstone – Kill the Messenger” Alan Robert Murray, Tim LeBlanc, Dean Zupancic // Warner Bros.
Outstanding Sound – Commercial
WINNER: OXFAM – “The Heist No One is Talking About”
Neil Johnson // Factory Studios
KIA – “Fueled by Youth” Nathan Dubin // Margarita Mix
SANE – “Let Me Talk” Anthony Moore, Jack Hallett // Factory Studios
Monster – “Opportunity Roars” Tom Jucarone // Sound Lounge
ICRC – “Hope” Anthony Moore // Factory Studios
Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film
WINNER: “Avengers: Infinity War”
Matt Aitken, Charles Tait, Paul Story, Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Marvyn Young // Weta Digital
“Maze Runner: The Death Cure” R. Christopher White, Daniel Macarin, Phillip Leonhardt, Paul Ramsden, Jeremy Fort // Weta Digital
“Blade Runner 2049” Richard Clegg, Axel Akesson, Wesley Chandler, Stefano Carta, Ian Cooke-Grimes // MPC
“Rampage” Erik Winquist, Benjamin Pickering, Stephen Unterfranz, Thrain Shadbolt, David Clayton // Weta Digital
“Thor: Ragnarok” Kyle McCulloch, Alexis Wajsbrot, Ben Loch, Harry Bardak // Framestore
Outstanding Visual Effects – Television (Under 13 Episodes)
WINNER: “Game of Thrones – Beyond The Wall”
Joe Bauer, Steve Kullback, Ted Rae // HBO
Eric Carney // The Third Floor
David Ramos // El Ranchito
“Altered Carbon – Out of The Past” Everett Burrell, Tony Meagher, Steve Moncur, Christine Lemon, Paul Jones // DNEG
“Outlander – Eye of The Storm” Richard Briscoe // Outlander Production Daniel Norlund, Filip Orrby // Goodbye Kansas Aladino Debert, Greg Teegarden // Digital Domain
“Black Mirror – Metalhead" Russell McLean // House of Tomorrow Michael Bell, Pete Levy, Steven Godfrey, Stafford Lawrence // DNEG
“Westworld – The Passenger” Jay Worth, Bruce Branit // Deep Water FX Bobo Skipper // Important Looking Pirates Kama Moiha // COSA VFX Mike Enriquez // DNEG
Outstanding Visual Effects – Television (Over 13 Episodes)
WINNER: “Agents of SHIELD – Orientation: Part 1”
Mark Kolpack, Sabrina Arnold // Marvel
Kevin Yuille, David Rey, Hnedel Maximore // FuseFX
“Supergirl – For Good” Armen V. Kevorkian, Gevork Babityan, Kris Cabrera, Jerry Chalupnik, Jason Shulman // Encore VFX
“Hawaii Five-O – A’ole e ‘olelo mai ana ke ahi ua ana ia” Adam Avitabile, Daniel Toomey, Michael Kirylo, Ryan Smolarek, Wayne Hollingsworth // Picture Shop
“Legends of Tomorrow – The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly” Armen V. Kevorkian, Andranik Taranyan, Jason Shulman, Dan Aprea, Lycee Anaya // Encore VFX
“NCIS: LA – A Line in the Sand/Ninguna Salida" Dylan Chudzynski, Michael Carter, Joe Suzuki, Jacob Kuhne // DigitalFilm Tree
The following special awards, which were previously announced, were also presented:
The winners of the 2018 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:
- Blackmagic Design - DaVinci Resolve 15 DaVinci Resolve 15, released at NAB this year, offers a major step forward for the post-production workflow, a significant shift in technically and creatively matched toolsets as well as overall efficiency. The platform, designed to provide a full suite of post-production tools, from ingest to delivery, directly integrated in a single ecosystem, includes significant improvements in quality, functionality and time to delivery. Exchange formats, translation and conform can be eliminated, and last-minute change efficiently managed for feature film, episodic TV and short form productions.
- Canon - Visual and Technical Monitoring of HDR Images Canon has seen the need for not only visually seeing HDR images on set, in editorial, and in finishing but also for engineering tools to know exact values of the HDR images and its pixels; compare SDR and HDR images; compare different HDR deliverable systems; out of gamut warnings; and connection to various manufacturers camera metadata. This complete system from Canon ensures that HDR and SDR image creation is easily and accurately be accomplished.
- Cinnafilm, Inc. – PixelStrings
PixelStrings is a cloud-based video conversion service focusing on ultimate playback quality for media. Leveraging the award-winning framerate conversion, retiming, artifact/noise/telecine correction, and transcode technologies from Cinnafilm, this PaaS enables the mass creation of best-possible video versions while leveraging infinite, GPU-enabled cloud compute power. The platform is a growing hub of other best-of-breed media technologies and is a simple pay-as-you-use toolset available 24/7 though a browser. PixelStings enables the freedom of a predictable OpEx process.
- IBM Aspera & Telestream - Telestream Vantage with Lightspeed Live Capture IBM Aspera and Telestream have developed a game-changing solution for high-speed capture and production of live, broadcast quality video from remote locations for faster production turnaround. The API integration of Aspera’s FASPStream streaming technology with Telestream Vantage and Lightspeed Live enables open-file workflows so production teams can work on live video feeds from remote locations in real time, with dramatically lower costs compared to satellite delivery, fiber or on-location production and more flexible deployment options.
The HPA Engineering Excellence Award is recognized as one of the most important technology honors in the industry, spotlighting companies and individuals who draw upon technical and creative ingenuity to develop breakthrough technologies. Submissions for this peer-judged award may include products or processes and must represent a step forward for its industry beneficiaries. Honorable Mention was awarded to Samsung for Samsung Onyx.
Charles S. Swartz Award
The Charles S. Swartz Award is awarded to a person, group, or company that has made a significant artistic, technological, business or educational impact across diverse aspects of the media industry. The award recognizes broad, impactful and lasting contributions that have advanced and/or provided some unique purpose to the larger media content ecosystem. This year’s honoree is Victoria Alonso, respected producer and Executive Vice President, Production for Marvel Studios.