Focal International Awards unveiled

On May 11 Trevor Phillips, Chair of the CRE, will be presenting the FOCAL International Awards 2004 at the London Television Centre.
Ever since FOCAL International was founded, nearly 20 years ago, the idea of organising an Awards Ceremony to acknowledge excellence in the footage industry has been discussed. There was always a reason why it was not the right moment to launch such an initiative, but just over a year ago FOCAL decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with a commitment to holding its first Awards ceremony in the year 2004.
The grand notion of finding a single sponsor for such an event amongst the UK's broadcasters turned out to be a total non-starter, but thanks to the tireless efforts of FOCAL's Commercial Manager Anne Johnson, sponsorship for individual awards from amongst the membership was sought and, in nearly all cases, obtained.
The task of co-ordinating the practical mechanism of inviting nominations from a global audience, obtaining viewing material, making it available, preparing all the relevant paperwork and inputting it to the website has been magnificently carried out by FOCAL's General Manager, Julie Lewis.
FOCAL sincerely hope that the 2004 Awards will go some way to drawing the attention of the public to this vital element of the creative processes at work in audio visual production. In addition, they are delighted to have enabled the footage community to honour its own, the professional researchers who access the material, the technicians who care for its physical maintenance and the producers who use it in such a wide variety of exciting, moving and stimulating ways.