It’s that time of year again- the Hollywood award season- whereby producers, writers, directors, actors and other craftspeople come together to honor one another in great style for their contributions to the world of media as we know it today. According to Tom O’Neil, America’s leading awards expert and founder of GoldDerby.com, 4,000 award ceremonies are held each year to honor this industry alone. And he should know he’s been tracking show results and making predictions on the competitions since 2000 while penning three books on the subject and blogging for the LA Times’ TheEnvelope.com.
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Unfortunately, with so many ceremonies to watch and so many opinions to account for, often times the lines between the intentions of the awards are blurred. But last year, I was asked to cover the PRISM Awards, a jewel of an honor presented by the Entertainment Industry Council (EIC) for the accurate depiction of substance abuse and mental health issues within television and film productions. The storylines are mostly heavy and often controversial, but more importantly, they touch the reality of average people’s lives. Actors are not measured against one another based on genre, but rather as they compare to a real person afflicted with an illness such as alcoholism, drug addiction, bi-polar disorders, etc. One Tree Hill actress, Shantel VanStaten, had this to say about the PRISM, “I think its one of the highest honors you can get. It’s not ‘oh you did an amazing job’ — it’s ‘you did the most realistic portrayal of something that we could find’.”
The EIC was founded in 1987 by Brian Dyak, and the first PRISM Award was presented ten years later as a direct result of the progress the EIC had made. “The PRISM Awards encourage creators to make the most of their rights to free creative expression, while at the same time showing the reality of these health issues,” Dyak said of his coveted award. “As a part of the industry, EIC never wants to inhibit the creative process; however, we take pride in being the first to applaud creators who use their power and influence over their audiences wisely and responsibly, informing them while at the same time entertaining them. This is what we refer to as “the art of making a difference,” and that is what EIC and the PRISM Awards are all about.”
Some of this year’s nominees in the film category are The Fighter, All Good Things, Frankie and Alice, Winter’s Bone and Black Swan. Television nominees include Entourage, The Big C, The United States of Tara, Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Breaking Bad, and Nurse Jackie among a long list of other notables.
The 2011 15th Annual PRISM Awards ceremony was recorded in Beverly Hills, California earlier this year and will begin airing on Sunday, September 25th on FX Network with additional syndication provided by National Geographic Channel, MTV, REELZ, and E! from September 25th through October 31st.
To learn more about the Entertainment Industries Council visit www.eiconling.org, the Prism Awards www.prismawards.com, and Gen Y TV www.gytv.us
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