The Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) has announced it will be giving the organization’s first Charles S. Swartz Award to Dean Elizabeth M. Daley this fall, in recognition of her contributions to cinematic education and the industry.

The award will be bestowed during the HPA Awards gala on November 6, and honors a person, group, company or technology that has made a significant artistic, technological, business or educational impact on post production. The mission of this award is to recognize broad and lasting contributions that have advanced and/or provided some unique purpose to the field of post-production.

Swartz, who passed away in 2007, led the Entertainment Technology Center from 2002 until 2006 and helped to build it into the industry’s premiere test bed for new digital cinema technologies, which helped to establish the ETC at USC as a vital educational center for entertainment professionals.  In addition to a long and successful career as producer, educator and consultant, Swartz served on the Board of Directors of the HPA.

In announcing Daley as the recipient of the Award, HPA President Leon Silverman said, “We are honored to have Elizabeth Daley be the first recipient of the Charles S. Swartz Award, given Charles Swartz’s relationship to Dean Daley, USC and the impact his own career had on the future of our industry. She has made important contributions to our industry in helping to prepare the filmmakers of the future for their careers in an era of significant creative and technological possibilities. In addition to her role at the School of Cinematic Arts, Elizabeth has also had profound influence as a major architect in the industry’s thinking and planning for the digital revolution through her leadership of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication. Elizabeth Daley’s vision has extended well beyond the university. Her prescient view, executed in an advanced curriculum, is producing some of the industry’s most important creative and artistic innovators. Through her work and ideas she is helping to set the stage for the industry of the future. ”

Daley has been the dean since 1991, and was the founding executive director of the Annenberg Center (1995 – 2005). As the leader of the School of Cinematic Arts, Daley has spearheaded the expansion of its six divisions, as well as the infrastructure and endowment that supports them. Highlights of her tenure include the creation of 14 academic chairs, construction of the 35,000-square-foot Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, and the founding of the Interactive Media Division. She is currently overseeing the creation of a new Cinematic Arts compound which is composed of a new state of the art complex which will feature a 137,000-square-foot facility; and four integral adjacent structures—a 36,000-square-foot instructional building; a 9,500-square-foot soundstage; a 9,200-square-foot soundstage; and an 8,450-square-foot soundstage. As director of the Annenberg Center, she oversaw numerous projects exploring the intersection of digital technology and society including the Institute for Multimedia Literacy, which is examining and defining literacy for the twenty-first century based on a mastery of sound, image, and text.

The Hollywood Post Alliance Awards take place at the Skirball Center. In addition to the Charles S. Swartz Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Post Production, 13 categories of awards will be bestowed, including nods for outstanding color grading, outstanding audio post production, outstanding editing, and outstanding compositing.