A sold-out crowd celebrated Hollywood’s top technical achievements at the HPA Awards 2022, where FotoKem’s David Cole took top feature film honors in color grading for Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Batman” and Picture Shop’s Steven Bodner was recognized for the “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” episode of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Amazon Web Services’ Color in the Cloud was one of four corporate efforts to take home a coveted Engineering Excellence Award. The technology is capable of lossless image quality using JPEG XS over AWS Direct Connect, AWS VPN or the open Internet.

The Hollywood Professional Association recognized Kim Waugh, executive VP of worldwide post-production creative services for Warner Bros. Studio Operations, with the HPA Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by his colleague Jeff Nagler, president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Studio Operations.

Waugh, who hails from New Zealand, oversees operations in Burbank, New York and London, where he is supervising the build of a new post-production facility in Soho to handle surplus workflow from Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden.

“The HPA Awards were built to recognize our own — the artists, the technologists, and the visionaries who drive this industry,” said HPA president Seth Hallen, noting that “all of us, and the HPA itself, remain in service to those storytellers who rely upon us as partners in their vision. As I sat in the theater Thursday night, I was filled with pride and admiration for the work that was up on the screen.”

In addition to Amazon, the Engineering Excellence honorees were:

ARRI REVEAL Color Science — These new image processing protocols are built into the Alexa 35 (supporting dual monitoring of HDR and SDR on set) and are also available as a suite of third-party tools, enabling more efficient grading.

LG UltraFine Pro OLED Monitor — This cost-effective, reference-grade HDR monitor meets color critical needs. The RGB additive OLED UHD panel delivers close to 100 percent Adobe RGB and P3 coverage with peak luminance of up to 700 nits at 25 percent APL (HDR mode).

Mo-Sys Engineering’s LED Key — Virtual production LED wall-based filming most easily accommodates mid- and close-up shots, with wide shots requiring the creation of set extensions for the floors and walls in cases where all but the largest LED volumes. LED Key makes virtual production filming affordable and flexible by allowing wide shot capture on small LED walls.

HPA Awards Engineering Committee chair Joachim Zell said there are four honorable mentions among the record submissions: Carl Zeiss’s ZEISS CinCraft Mapper, Frame.io’s Camera to Cloud, Glassbox Technologies’ DragonFly virtual camera, and LucidLink’s Filespaces.

The HPA Awards 2022 marked the inaugural Outstanding Achievement in Restoration, presented to Ignite Films and Scott MacQueen for reviving the 1953 sci-fi classic “Invaders from Mars,” directed by William Cameron Menzies. (See before and after pics here.)

“The HPA Awards have grown in scope and stature over the past 16 years,” Hallen said, adding, “we have our eyes on the evolution of our industry and how we recognize the innovators and artists driving it.”

Variety presents a complete list of winners and nominees.