The HPA Awards Committee has announced that director David France and visual effects supervisor Ryan Laney will receive the organization's prestigious Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation for 2021 for Welcome to Chechnya. The coveted distinction will be bestowed on November 18 at the HPA Awards gala at the Hollywood Legion.
The Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation was conceived to recognize companies and individuals who have demonstrated excellence in the development of processes or projects that support creative storytelling. The award is not bestowed every year, but rather at the discretion of the jury, reserved for truly important work. Co-chaired by Carolyn Giardina and Joachim Zell, jury members include cinematographer Markus F rderer, ASC; Paramount Pictures SVP Asset Management Andrea Kalas; Legendary Pictures VP, Post Production Technology JoAnne Kim; and Cinema Audio Society president Karol Urban.
Welcome to Chechnya is a powerful and eye-opening documentary about activists who risk unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ persecution in the Russian republic of Chechnya. The film follows the activists as they work undercover to rescue victims, get them into safe houses, and help them obtain visas to escape persecution.
The filmmakers shadowed activists to document the ongoing pogrom against LGBTQ people in Chechnya, where leader Ramzan Kadyrov continues his campaign to detain, torture, and execute his own people. Director David France (How to Survive a Plague) and VFX supervisor Ryan Laney (The Day After Tomorrow and Spider-Man 3) used cutting-edge machine-learning to automate face replacements and provide anonymity to the people on the ground, telling the story of an extraordinary group of individuals endangering their own lives to challenge the evil.
To help witnesses avoid punishment for speaking out, the victims were given a digital disguise by the VFX team. The film lives in the harrowing stories of these individuals, and keeping them safe was a critical priority. We wanted to capture the physicality of the people and show their emotional journeys without putting them at risk. We had tried several ways to hide their identities, but it was Ryan who solved it, said France.
Helming the VFX team for the first documentary ever to be included on the Academy's VFX shortlist was Laney, who describes the technique as transferring the style of one person's face onto the movements of the other person's. We call it a veil' because it is a bit like make-up, where the new face is painted over the original. Machine learning decouples identity from movement so we ended up with 100 percent the original person's motion, but their identity is veiled and undetectable.
The filmmakers recruited mostly queer activists to be the face doubles for the witnesses. I asked them if they would lend their faces as a human shield to protect the identities of the folks I'd filmed. And they signed on as an act of activism, said France. We [digitally] captured the likeness of these people in all the lighting environments found in the film, Laney says, adding that once they had this material, they worked on the individual shots by effectively combining machine-learning, automation, and traditional, artist-driven visual effects techniques.
Awards tickets are now available at www.hpaonline.com.
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
18/04/2024
Tom Durant Pritchard as Alexander Blake
Thursday 18 April 2024 Tom Durant Prit...
18/04/2024
Alone Australia goes from strength to strength
18 April, 2024
Media releases
The program again delivers for SBS with significant uplifts in digital BVOD vi...
18/04/2024
ORANGE COUNTY, Va., April 18, 2024 - L3Harris Technologies [NYSE:LHX] has entered into an agreement with Orange County, Virginia, to fund the expansion and mode...
18/04/2024
L3Harris Sky Warden multi-mission aircraft, equipped with the WESCAM MX-15 and WESCAM MX-20 EO/IR sensor systems, was selected for USSOCOMs Armed Overwatch prog...
18/04/2024
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 18, 2024 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) has received ...
18/04/2024
LAS VEGAS The National Association of Broadcasters is reporting that more than 61,000 people attended the 2024 NAB Show, where artificial intelligence and the c...
18/04/2024
Ann Keefe, Regional Director - UK and Ireland at Kingston Technology, explains how storage and memory decisions made now are underpinning creativity in the futu...
18/04/2024
Krisha Marcano Announced as Dean of Theater for Boston Conservatory at Berklee The theater educator, choreographer, and performer will join Boston Conservator...
18/04/2024
The newly acquired UKVI licence enables Escape Studios to recruit and retain international students
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 18, 2024
The newl...
18/04/2024
Attendees from more than 163 countries were present, including 34 delegation buying groups from around the world
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 18, 202...
18/04/2024
In August 2023, Dyn Media launched as a new broadcaster in European sports, aimed at giving sports beyond football the exposure and viewership they deserve. The...
18/04/2024
Hitomi Broadcast, market leader in audio/video alignment and latency tools based in the UK, has signed a partnership deal with global broadcast rental specialis...
18/04/2024
18 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and Dynamic Television announce new Scripted Initiative
Savage River
Screen Australia and Los Angeles-based telev...
18/04/2024
Vislink's DragonFly V - The Company's Smallest-Ever Transmitter Debuted ...
18/04/2024
MediaSilo to Offer Camera to Cloud with Atomos
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Integration between MediaSilo and Atomos Cloud Studio unlocking ...
18/04/2024
MultiDyne Updates its SilverBULLET Series to Serve More Fiber-Optic Links
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
MultiDyne Fiber Optic Solutions intro...
18/04/2024
Cinedeck Partners with Paramount to Revolutionize Content Delivery Process
Brie Clayton April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Cinedeck, a pioneer in integrated de...
18/04/2024
Unreal for video adding rocks and foliage
Graham Quince April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Welcome to my series on learning Unreal Engine for After Effects u...
18/04/2024
Best Budget Beginner-Friendly 4k Drone
Sean Alami April 17, 2024
0 Comments
Potensic Atom 4k 3 axis Gimbal Drone, ideal drone for beginners.
Some con...
18/04/2024
Rocky Mount Mills will be overflowing with runners, families and friends, all fo...
18/04/2024
Berklee's Yoon-Ji Lee Receives Guggenheim Fellowship Lee, an assistant professor of composition, creates music based on unconventional and nonlinear struc...
18/04/2024
Ben Sherwood, former president of Disney ABC Television Group, has been named CEO and publisher at The Daily Beast. Joanna Coles, former chief content officer a...
18/04/2024
Ping pong for the masses: Bringing an old sport to a brand new audience with Wor...
18/04/2024
Fanatical fans: IMG on bringing the world of table tennis to a new global audien...
18/04/2024
Back to All News
Netflix Follows Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in New SeriesPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
18 April 2024
GlobalUnited States
Link copie...
18/04/2024
Back to All News
Chinese-Language Revenge Thriller Series The Resurrected'...
18/04/2024
Back to All News
The Witcher Season 4 Begins Production in the UK and Netflix A...
18/04/2024
Apple has reduced its overall greenhouse gas emissions by more than 55 percent since 2015, the company shared today in its 2024 Environmental Progress Report. T...
18/04/2024
Prison Journalism: April's experiences of black boudoirThabo Mthembu was incarcerated in Pollsmoor Prison from 2014 to 2019. Read Thabo's story
by Tha...
18/04/2024
Prison Journalism: Can gangsterism and violence be reduced in prison?Dean Mashimbwe, a Zimbabwean migrant residing in Cape Town, was incarcerated at Pollsmoor C...
18/04/2024
Software making music: How DJs are doing itSoftware plays a big part in music production, recording, and performances. Here's what DJs are using, and how yo...
18/04/2024
Tonight on House of Zwide: Zanele later blindsides an unwitting Faith into meeti...
18/04/2024
Debut author stuns with international bestselling thriller Anna O'Matthew Blake burst onto the book scene with his bestseller Anna O', a deliciously d...
18/04/2024
It's time to get a little wicked. Members can now stream No Rest for the Wicked from the cloud.
It leads six new games joining the GeForce NOW library of m...
18/04/2024
Skeem Saam: Wednesday's episode, 17 April 2024 [video]Missed an episode of Skeem Saam? No problem! Watch the latest episode of your favourite South African ...
18/04/2024
Watch: Trailers for the best Afrikaans movies ever madeDon't know what to watch? Here are some of the best Afrikaans movie trailers ever made, including Too...
18/04/2024
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Thales alongside partners SISINT and CONECTICABO...
18/04/2024
In response to growing concerns raised regarding the adverse impact of TikTok co...
18/04/2024
We were saddened to learn this morning of the passing of our friend and former colleague, Alf McCarthy who died yesterday.
We remember Alf as a popular present...
18/04/2024
NVIDIA today recognized 18 partners in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for their achievements and commitment to driving AI adoption.
The recipients were hon...
17/04/2024
Opening today, the exploration is aimed at selecting a location that will preser...
17/04/2024
On April 18 and 19, experts from across the audio industry-including artists, pu...
17/04/2024
With its particular combination of talent, ambition, culture, and, of course, wo...
17/04/2024
At Spotify, we want to equip student creators with the tools and resources neede...
17/04/2024
L3Harris Communications Australia Field Service support continues to grow with a...
17/04/2024
An optical technician lays on a diving board suspended between NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes primary and secondary mirrors. The photo is a projected ...
The HPA Awards Committee has announced that director David France and visual effects supervisor Ryan Laney will receive the organization's prestigious Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation for 2021 for Welcome to Chechnya. The coveted distinction will be bestowed on November 18 at the HPA Awards gala at the Hollywood Legion.
