The Hollywood Professional Association Awards Committee has announced that its prestigious Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation will honor One World: Together at Home, a globally televised and streamed special produced remotely, last April by international advocacy organization Global Citizen and the World Health Organization in support of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, powered by the UN Foundation.
The award recognizes creative storytelling and technical innovation. The recipient is selected by a distinguished jury of industry luminaries. The award will be accepted by Lee Rolontz, senior vice president of event and broadcast at Global Citizen during the 15th annual HPA Awards gala, which will be held online on Thursday, November 19.
The Creativity & Innovation jury, led by co-chairs Carolyn Giardina and Joachim Zell, issued a statement in announcing the award: "The jury selected the One World: Together At Home special for its timely and relevant response to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, uniquely bringing people together in a comforting and entertaining way. Conceived and produced in April, the global production was inclusive in nature and harnessed cloud-based and other technologies to enable remote workflows. It was also a charitable event, raising $127.9 million for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.”
A stunning creative and technical achievement, One World: Together at Home was curated by Lady Gaga. In addition to supporting frontline workers and the WHO, the concert was intended to promote the practice of social distancing while staying together during the pandemic. The historic eight-hour globally promoted special, hosted on April 18, garnered unprecedented worldwide distribution, reaching billions.
More than 60 global broadcast networks, across more than 175 countries, nine digital platforms and hundreds of affiliates, celebrated and supported brave healthcare workers doing life-saving work on the front lines. One World: Together At Home kicked off with a six-hour digital stream that was followed by a two-hour broadcast special. The broadcast special was hosted by Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live and Stephen Colbert of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with friends from Sesame Street. All were on hand to help unify and inspire people around the world, focusing on communities impacted by COVID-19. The eight hours included conversations with, and tributes to, the scientists, healthcare professionals, and other essential services workers that have championed the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One World: Together At Home came together at the very beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown and aimed to honor the heroic efforts of the frontline healthcare and essential workers,” said Rolontz. “Without any traditional event production, we were able to produce a digital and network production that was distributed across 60 global broadcast networks, in 175 countries, reaching more than 270 million people.
We are proud that as of October, 100 percent of the funds committed to the World Health Organization COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and 25 of the 26 commitments pledged to local and regional response organizations during the broadcast have been disbursed. We could not have executed this production without the help of our producer Jeff Jacobs, Michael Cioni and Frame.io, Mike Polito and Bill Deronde, and all at Sim International. Thank you HPA for recognizing innovation in entertainment as a catalyst for change.”
The HPA Awards, which are produced by Homerun Entertainment, take place thanks to the generosity of Diamond Title Sponsor Blackmagic Design; Registration Sponsor Picture Shop; Event Sponsors Avid, Dolby, DTS, and ZEISS; and Show Sponsors The Alex Theatre, Deluxe, Jump!, Keycode Media, MTI Film, Pixelogic Media, PostPro Media, Stephen Arnold Music, and Wipster.
More information about the HPA Awards and HPA can be found at http://www.hpaonline.com/.