First published 6 May 2022: The Jane Mercer Award at the Focal International Awards this June will be sonsored by independent video and stock photo giant Piemags.
Focal International told PAN: “We are delighted that Piemags is sponsoring the FOCAL International, Jane Mercer Researcher of the Year Award this year. This prestigious award recognises the outstanding achievement and the exceptional work undertaken by footage researchers/archive producers within the audio-visual industry.”
Piemags owner Paul Fearn told PAN: “Footage Research is such an important part of any production so we are happy to be sponsoring the Jane Mercer Award this year and look forward to meeting the winner in June.”
About the Jane Mercer Award: The recipient is an individual Footage Researcher (or team), who has demonstrated outstanding achievement whilst being primarily responsible for the footage research undertaken for a production(s) or project(s) premiered or released during the qualifying year 2021. Such production(s) or project(s) can include series that have been aired over many years, providing the cited episode was premiered in 2021. Anyone can nominate a Researcher for this award which is not restricted to FOCAL International members.
The Jury will be looking for an individual or team who displayed some or all of the following qualities:
Depth of knowledge.
Tenacity.
Thoroughness.
Imagination.
An ability to enhance and protect the integrity of the footage.
AND THE WINNERS ARE!
Synopsis
How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and criminally overlooked all at the same time? From acclaimed director Edgar Wright comes THE SPARKS BROTHERS, a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers/bandmates Ron and Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of your favourite band’s favourite band.
Archival highlights
It was a herculean task condensing a 50 year career into a feature length documentary, which features over 80 studio interviews, 84 minutes of archive and over 100 music tracks.
The original budget was for a 90 minute film with an allowance for 25 minutes of archive, so the fact that our Archive Producer Kate Griffiths managed to more than treble the amount of archive for the same budget is nothing short of magic, and indeed testament to her hard work and dedication. She negotiated deals with over 50 archives world-wide and tracked down archive that had been missing for many years and in some cases deemed lost forever.
The Documentary is almost wall to wall of incredible archive which brings colour and humour and pathos to 5 decades of storytelling and music making.
Kate brought so much passion to the project and worked tirelessly over a 3 year period despite illness in her family, a global pandemic, constantly shifting goal posts and some very tricky archive owners, one of which she personally went to his house in LA to help him scan all of his transparencies!
We couldn’t have made this movie without Kate and she absolutely deserves the recognition for her amazing work.
View all Piemags news on PAN
View all Focal Int news on PAN