The television production of the 2011 Hope College Christmas Vespers service has received recognition in the 18th Annual Communicator Awards program of the International Academy of the Visual Arts and has also been nominated for two Michigan Emmy Awards.
The program, produced by WGVU-TV in Grand Rapids in cooperation with the department of music at Hope, received an “Award of Excellence” in the Video category in the 18th Annual Communicator Awards. It has also been nominated in the categories of “Special Event Coverage (other than News or Sports)” and “Director-Live or Live to Tape” in the 34th Emmy Award program of the Michigan Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
The 2011 Christmas Vespers television program was produced, directed and edited by Phil Lane, production manager at WGVU. Dr. Brad Richmond, professor of music and director of choral activities at Hope, was artistic director of the 2011 Vespers.
Christmas Vespers has been held at Hope College since 1941. The program of Christmas carols and anthems is presented by the college’s department of music and features more than 200 students in historic Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
The service was first broadcast on WGVU in 1994 and is now filmed every two or three years.
The productions have earned multiple awards through the years. The 2008 production won three awards, including a Second Place Silver Screen Award in the Arts: Music category from the U.S. International Film & Video Festival’s 42nd Annual Awards Competition; an Award of Distinction in the Arts category in the Videographer Awards competition; and a Bronze Award in the 30th annual Telly Awards competition. The 2006 production won an Award of Excellence in the 2007 Videographer Awards; a Silver Award in the 2007 Millennium Awards; and a Best Arts-Local Release Award in the 2007 Gabriel Awards. The 2004 production won a 2005 Michigan Emmy Award for Multiple Camera Field Directing, and Honorable Mention in the 2005 Videographer Awards.
The 2011 services were held on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 3-4. The WGVU production was made available to PBS affiliates nationwide for presentation during the holiday season.
The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program honoring creative excellence for communication professionals, and is an annual competition honoring the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations and identity work for print, video, interact and audio. This year’s Communicator Awards received thousands of entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world. The awards program is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a range of acclaimed media, advertising and marketing firms.
The winners of the 34th Annual Emmy Awards presented by the Michigan Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will be announced during a ceremony on Saturday, June 16, at the MotorCity Casino Sound Board Theater in Detroit.