LOS ANGELES–The Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA), the trade association for the post production community, has announced the recipients of the organization's HPA Engineering Excellence Award. The winners will be honored at the HPA Awards gala Nov. 1 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
“The products and processes that we honor with this award continue to demonstrate the important engineering work that is done ‘behind our industry's scenes and screens,’” Leon Silverman, president of the Hollywood Post Alliance, said.
The winners of the 2012 HPA Engineering Excellence Award:
•Cinnafilm - Tachyon
Tachyon, a standards transcoder, was created to eliminate time-consuming trips to/from SDI hardware when high quality conversions are needed. Broadcasters and media content providers can leverage it to perform cadence corrections, mixed mode normalizations, repair compositing errors and perform standards conversions.
Lance Mauer, CEO Cinnafilm, Inc. stated, "We believe firmly in the importance of providing high quality standards and format conversions within the file-based transcoding workflow. To receive an award from distinguished industry peers at the HPA gives us validation that our research and vision really do matter."
•Crossroads Systems - Strong Box
StrongBox is a file-based, portable storage system for long-term data retention. The enterprise-level solution utilizes linear tape file system technology, combining the scalability of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. Crossroads believes StrongBox is an answer to data storage requirements.
David Cerf, executive vice president of corporate and business development at Crossroads. "This recognition from HPA underscores the impact that StrongBox can have in the media and entertainment industry."
•Dolby Laboratories - Dolby Atmos
Dolby Atmos delivers a listening experience that moves sound around and above audiences. It provides content creators with creative freedom to tell their stories and simplifies movie distribution with a single universal package to deliver to audiences the impact of the artist's intent, regardless of theatre configuration.
“Dolby's many years of engineering, research and understanding how people perceive sound has led to a significant milestone in the development of Dolby Atmos,” said Doug Darrow, senior vice president of cinema for Dolby Laboratories.
•Sony Electronics - F65 Camera
Sony Electronics F65 CineAlta digital motion picture camera system derives 4K resolution using a 8K complementary metal-oxide semiconductor sensor that has high resolution, exposure latitude and a wide color gamut. As part of an overall camera system based on Sony's SRMASTER open platform, the F65 is part of an end-to-end 4K file-based mastering workflow.
“The HPA is committed to supporting total workflows from lens to screen,” said Joel Ordesky, marketing manager at Sony Electronics' Professional Solutions of America group. “This is also a critical goal for Sony as we continue to develop our own 4K production technologies.”
Gradient Interactive Tapped for HPA Creativity & Innovation Award
The HPA also announced the Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation in Post Production will be awarded to Gradient Interactive for their pre-visualization product, Sandbox.
The Creativity and Innovation Award recognizes excellence in storytelling and/or technical innovation.
Gradient Interactive developed the software application to offer near real time translation of on-set data into production data, creating a workflow tool that allows users to pre-visualize sequences. Sandbox is a mobile previs system, which enables users to scout virtual locations, record camera moves and render simple animations from an iPad or Android tablet.
The company says a director can plan many of his shots before seeing a physical location, while the camera department can plan placement, lenses, lighting and practice moves. The production design/art can also create storyboards, place props and plan set extensions, while the visual effects team can begin building set extensions. Sandbox can allow the special effects department to plan stunts and manage safety parameters.
Gradient Interactive's Olcun Tan said the award “represents what we strive for in all of our work and in particular the last three years of development of Sandbox.”
Tickets for the HPA Awards can be purchased online at www.hpaawards.net, by calling the HPA at 213.614.0860 or writing to info@hpaawards.net.
