Women in Media & ZEISS launch Altitude Awards

ZEISS Cinema Americas and Women in Media celebrate Women’s History Month with the new Altitude Awards.

These Awards honour the technical and artistic achievements of creatives who are making meaningful, well-crafted stories in the camera and lighting departments. The competition is open to professional and student WIM members working as cinematographers, camera operators and gaffers. First prize is $3000 cash and a full week use of ZEISS Supreme Prime or Supreme Prime Radiance lenses.

Partnering with WIM on the new award, Anna Schmidt, ZEISS senior manager of marketing, elaborates, “Representation matters. Period. The only way to get gender diversity on set is to turn conversations into action. We hope that initiatives like this help create opportunities which make space for all women on set, including trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming.”

The esteemed panel of Altitude Award judges includes: ASC members Johnny Simmons, Tami Reiker, Alan Caso and David Harp as well as cinematographers Sandra Valde-Hansen, Laura Merians Gonçalves and Anna Amortegui. In addition, Liz Miller, EVP of Television Production at Paramount Television Studios, and NCIS director Mary Lou Belli will be weighing in, as well as Idit Dvir and Srikanth Nandigam of Howard University. The panel will be evaluating applicants work, technical and artistic merit, and goals.

To enter, candidates are asked to submit an application and examples of their body of work via their CrewList Profile. In addition to the $3,000 and week’s use of ZEISS Supreme Prime OR Zeiss Supreme Prime Radiance Lenses, Second Place will receive $1000, and 2 Runners-up will each take home $500. Five more will take home Honourable Mention Laurels.

“Women In Media is thrilled to team up with ZEISS to acknowledge our members in camera and lighting who are ready to move up into higher production value projects,” added Tema Staig, executive director of Women In Media. “Our goal is to help forge sustainable careers through education, mentorship, initiatives, and direct connections. Having our judges look at candidates’ CrewList Profiles gets considerable talent on their radars to potentially hire or recommend.”

Submissions are accepted until 11:59pm EDT May 15, 2022. Winners will be announced during Cinegear Expo Los Angles which takes place June 9–12, 2022.

To find out how to Join Women in Media (WIM) visit here.