We are very honoured. VELVET founders, Javier Valderrama and Toni Hernandez have been awarded by the Spanish Film Academy with “Segundo de Chomon Award*”, every two years recognition to companies or individuals whose technical innovations contribute to the development of the film industry.
“The imagination of Chomon still is inspiring. Thanks to professionals like Toni and Javier, cinema remains alive and in continuous evolution”, underlined the President of the Spanish Film Academy, Fernando Méndez-Leite, for whom this award “reminds us that cinema, as well as being an art and a human form of expression, is still an invention, the product of mechanisms that serve as a tool to tell stories”.
Toni Hernández thanked DPs, lighting technicians, lighting rental companies and television channels for the award. He was pleased that “the audiovisual sector has finally become a strategic sector” and called on the government authorities “to ensure that the technical audiovisual industries have a regulatory and legislative framework that helps the companies that continue to work and create value on European territory”.
Carmen Albert, Camera & Light Magazine editor, presented the VELVET story since we started in 2008 and the pioneering articulated LED lights were a surprise at that first IBC where they were presented.
Josep Maria Civit AEC described what innovation is: “The definition of innovation is the creation or modification of a product and its introduction into a market… And VELVET lights are being sold all over the world!
Many thanks to all the friends, partners, colleagues present at the ceremony in Madrid and to all of you who were not able to attend but are part of our history. This award is yours.
Thank you and let’s continue to light up the best stories!
*SEGUNDO de CHOMÓN was a pioneering Spanish film director and inventor compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions. Chomón made up several camera effects and experimented with color and temporality, and would eventually influence the surrealist work of filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, making him, in many ways, the father of Spanish cinema.
