Read all about Ignite’s Triumph at the Hollywood Professional Association Awards

Restoration Supervisor Scott MacQueen accepts inaugural Hollywood Professional Association “Outstanding Achievement in Restoration”.

Greetings Martians,

It has been a whirlwind couple of months but the great news is we’ve gotten our Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs of William Cameron Menzies’ Invaders from Mars, painstakingly restored by the great Scott MacQueen, into your hands. What we haven’t let you in on in awhile is some of the behind-the-scenes excitement going on at Ignite HQ. First and foremost was our trip to a podium in Hollywood to pick up an award from the prestigious Hollywood Professional Association. The HPA hands out awards once a year honoring creative categories like color grading, editing and sound and visual effects in film, television, documentary film and commercials. In 2022, a special award was created for “Outstanding Achievement in Restoration”, one of the single most important jobs in the film industry, especially today.

As many of you are no doubt aware, film history preservation is not a given. It has only been through determination, careful planning and preparation, and then extremely laborious and time-consuming work that most of the films made before the year 1980 were preserved. Most silent movies are lost to time forever, even by such luminaries as John Ford and Erich Von Stroheim. Whether through carelessness or maliciousness, a lot of film is lost forever or in such poor condition it cannot be viewed. Without the foundation provided by the great early movies there would be no cinema today and preserving that history is as important as presenting contemporary filmmakers with new opportunities to make art.

And so, we were humbled beyond imagination when the HPA presented us the inaugural Jury Award for Outstanding Achievement in Restoration for our work in bringing Invaders from Mars back to its former glory. Indeed, in the words of star Jimmy Hunt: “The film has never looked better, not even on its initial release!”

Jim Quan, The Big Pieces Company, spoke on behalf of Ignite founder Jan Willem Bosman Jansen:

“It’s a great honor to receive this award from HPA. We have taken tremendous care to ensure that the work we have done is an homage to the genius of William Cameron Menzies, and this recognition means the world.”

Other recipients of HPA 2022 awards included The Batman for Outstanding Color Grading of a theatrical feature, Summer of Soul for Outstanding Editing in Nonfiction, and Dune for Outstanding Sound. To be a recipient of such a prestigious award, sharing the stage with Hollywood’s most talented professionals, representing some of the most popular movies of the last year, is proof positive that there is a place for classic cinema to flourish alongside contemporary cinema. And we couldn’t be happier to help open doors for further recognition in the art of film restoration.

-Team Ignite