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The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee have announced the winners of the 2019 HPA Engineering Excellence Award. The winners were selected by a blue-ribbon judging panel after a session held at IMAX on June 22. Honors will be bestowed on November 21 at the 14th annual HPA Awards gala at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

The HPA Awards were founded in 2005 to recognize creative artistry and innovation in the professional media content industry. A coveted honor, the Engineering Excellence Award rewards outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution, and archive.

HPA Awards Engineering Committee chair Joachim Zell said, “Every year, it is an absolute pleasure and a privilege to witness the innovative work that is brewing in our industry. Judging by the number of entries, which was our largest ever, there is genuine excitement within our community to push our capabilities to the next level. It was a close race and shows us that the future is being plotted by the brilliance that we see in the Engineering Excellence Awards.  Congratulations to the winners, and all the entrants, for impressive and inspiring work.”

The winners of the 2019 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:

Adobe – Content-Aware Fill for Video in Adobe After Effects

Content-Aware Fill for video, an industry first, uses intelligent algorithms to automatically remove unwanted objects like boom mics or distracting signs from video. Using optical flow technology, Content-Aware Fill references frames before, next to, or after an object and fills the area automatically making it look as if the object was never there.

Epic Games – Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine is a highly flexible and scalable real-time visualization platform enabling animation, simulation, performance capture and photorealistic renders at unprecedented speeds. Filmmakers, broadcasters and beyond use Unreal Engine to scout virtual locations and sets, complete previsualization, achieve in-camera final-pixel VFX on set, deliver immersive live mixed reality broadcasts, edit CG characters and more in real-time. Unreal Engine dramatically streamlines content creation and virtual production, affording creators greater flexibility and freedom to achieve their visions.

Pixelworks – TrueCut Motion

TrueCut Motion is a cinematic video tool for finely tuning motion appearance.  It leverages Pixelworks’ 20 years of leadership in video processing, together with a new motion appearance model and motion dataset.  Used as a part of the creative process, TrueCut Motion empowers filmmakers to explore a broader range of motion appearances than previously possible.

Portrait Displays, Inc. and LG Electronics – CalMAN LUT Based Auto-Calibration Integration with LG OLED TVs

OLED televisions are commonly used in Hollywood for various uses including as a client viewing monitor, SDR BT.709 reference monitor, and as QC monitor for consumer deliverables, including broadcasting, optical media and OTT. To be used in these professional settings, a highly accurate color calibration is essential. Portrait Displays and LG Electronics partnered to bring 1D and 3D LUT based hardware level CalMAN AutoCal to the 2018 and newer LG OLED televisions.

Honorable Mentions were awarded to Ambidio for Ambidio Looking Glass; Grass Valley, a Belden brand for Creative Grading; and Netflix, Inc. for Photon.

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.  The recipients of the Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation and Lifetime Achievement Award will be announced in the coming weeks.

Tickets for the 14th annual HPA Awards will be available for purchase later this summer. The HPA Awards are made possible through the generous sponsorship of Awards Title Diamond Sponsor Blackmagic Design, Platinum Sponsor IMAX, and Supporting Sponsor DTS, and Foundation Members Avid, Co3, Deluxe, Dolby, EFILM, and Encore. More information about the HPA Awards and the Hollywood Professional Association can be found at www.hpaonline.com.

About the HPA® Awards
The HPA Awards were created to foster awareness and recognize the achievements of the individuals and companies that have contributed to groundbreaking technologies and creative excellence within the professional media content industry, and build involvement in the Hollywood Professional Association. The HPA is a partner of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®). Information about the HPA Awards is available at www.hpaonline.com. The HPA Awards will be presented with generous support from Foundation Members and sponsors.

About the Hollywood Professional Association
Hollywood Professional Alliance (HPA®) serves the professional community of businesses and individuals who provide expertise, support, tools and the infrastructure for the creation and finishing of motion pictures, television, commercials, digital media and other dynamic media content. Through their partnership with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®), the leader in the advancement of the art, science and craft of the image, sound, and metadata ecosystem, the HPA continues to extend its support of the community it represents. Information about the HPA is available at www.hpaonline.com.

About the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) 
For more than a century, the people of the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE, pronounced "simp-tee") have sorted out the details of many significant advances in media and entertainment technology, from the introduction of "talkies" and color television to HD and UHD (4K, 8K) TV. Since its founding in 1916, the Society has received an Oscar® and multiple Emmy® Awards for its work in advancing moving-imagery engineering across the industry. SMPTE has developed thousands of standards, recommended practices, and engineering guidelines, more than 800 of which are currently in force today. SMPTE Time Code™ and the ubiquitous SMPTE Color Bars™ are just two examples of the Society's notable work. As it enters its second century, the Society is shaping the next generation of standards and providing education for the industry to ensure interoperability as the industry evolves further into IT- and IP-based workflows.

SMPTE's global membership today includes more than 7,000 members: motion-imaging executives, creatives, technologists, researchers, and students who volunteer their time and expertise to the Society's standards development and educational initiatives. A partnership with the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) connects SMPTE and its membership with the businesses and individuals who support the creation and finishing of media content. Information on joining SMPTE is available at www.smpte.org/join. 

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