Student Academy Awards History Highlights

• September 26, 1972 – At a meeting of the Short Subjects Branch Executive Committee, Herbert Klynn introduces a proposal for a separate recognition of student films. As a result the Academy’s Board of Governors forms an ad hoc committee to define the Student Film Awards.

• July 9, 1973 – The ad hoc committee presents its recommendations to the Short Subjects Branch Executive Committee.

• September 4, 1973 – Rules for the first Student Film Awards competition are presented to and approved by the Academy’s Board of Governors.

• December 20, 1973 – The first Student Film Award winners are announced at a ceremony hosted by Academy member Jack Lemmon at the Academy Award® Theater on Melrose Avenue.  Each of the winners receives a share of the $5,000 in prize money from the National Association of Theater Owners and an engraved trophy designed by Academy member Saul Bass.

• July 1, 1975 – The Second Annual Student Film Awards is hosted by Oscar®-winning director William Friedkin (“The French Connection,” 1971).  Among the winners is Robert Zemeckis, a student at the University of Southern California, who takes home a Special Jury Award for his dramatic film “A Field of Honor.”  Zemeckis would go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for writing “Back to the Future” (1985) and an Oscar for directing “Forrest Gump” (1994).

• 1976 – AT&T becomes a sponsor of the competition.

• June 23, 1976 – The Third Annual Student Film Awards are held in the Academy’s new headquarters in Beverly Hills. Presenting the awards are Honorary Award recipient Groucho Marx, Oscar-winning editor Verna Fields (“Jaws,” 1975), Academy Award-nominated actor George Segal (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” 1966), Oscar-winning filmmaker Chuck Jones (“The Dot and the Line,” 1965) and Academy Award-nominated documentarian David Wolper (“The Race for Space,” 1959).

• May 21, 1978 – At the Fifth Annual Student Film Awards, Bob Saget of Temple University receives a Documentary Merit award for his film “Through Adam’s Eyes.”  Saget would go on to become a well-known comedian and television personality as well as the writer-producer-director of “Farce of the Penguins” (2006).

• June 3, 1979 – John Lasseter, a student at the California Institute of the Arts, wins the Animation Achievement award for “Lady and the Lamp.”  Lasseter would receive the same honor in 1980 for “Nitemare” and would go on to become the Student Academy Awards program’s most honored alumnus, with five Academy Award nominations, an Oscar (with William Reeves) for the animated short film “Tin Toy,” and a Special Achievement Award in 1995 for “his inspired leadership of the Pixar ‘Toy Story’ team, resulting in the first feature-length computer-animated film.”

• June 8, 1980 – Roland Hallé and Peter W. Ladue, students at Boston University, receive the Documentary Achievement award for their film “Karl Hess: Toward Liberty.”  The film also would bring the pair a nomination in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 53rd Academy Awards, making them the first Student Academy Award winners to garner an Oscar nomination.

• 1981 – The Academy adds the Honorary Foreign Film award to the competition.  Jaco Van Dormael, a student at the Institut National Supérieur in Belgium, becomes the first recipient of the honor for his film “Maedeli-La-Breche.”

• June 6, 1982 – Ken Kwapis, a student at the University of Southern California, receives the Dramatic Achievement award for “For Heaven’s Sake.”  Kwapis would go onto become an accomplished television director, working on such shows as “The Office,” “The Bernie Mac Show” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”  He also would direct several feature films including “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” (2005) and “License to Wed” (2007). 

• June 5, 1983 – New York University’s Spike Lee takes home the Dramatic Merit award for his film “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.”  Lee would go on to earn two Academy Award nominations, one for the original screenplay for “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and one for the documentary feature “4 Little Girls” (1997), with Sam Pollard.

• June 8, 1986 – Stanford University’s Lauren Lazin receives a Documentary Merit award for her film “The Flapper Story.”  Lazin would go on to earn a nomination at the 77th Academy Awards for the documentary feature “Tupac: Resurrection,” with Karolyn Ali.
  
  Todd Holland from the University of California, Los Angeles, receives of a Dramatic Merit award for his film “Chicken Thing.”  Holland would go on to have a successful career as a television director and producer working on “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”

• 1988–1990 – The Colgate-Palmolive Company serves as national sponsor of the Student Film Awards.

• 1990–2000 – The Directors Guild of America joins with the Academy to sponsor an additional Student Film Award for directing.  The decade’s winners are Adam Davidson, Steve Pearl, Christian M. Taylor, Graham Justice, Matt Danciger, David Riker, Patricia Cardoso, Charles R. Uy, Bill Platt, Marni Banack and Joan L. Stein.

• 1991 – The Academy’s Board or Governors officially renames the program “The Student Academy Awards.”

• June 14, 1992 – Peter H. Docter, a student at the California Institute of the Arts, receives the Animation Gold Medal award for his film “Next Door.”  Docter would go on to collaborate with fellow Student Academy Award winner John Lasseter at Pixar Animation Studios, for many years.  A collaboration that would result in two Academy Award nominations: in 1995 for the original screenplay of “Toy Story” (with Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, Joe Ranft) and in 2001 for the animated feature “Monsters, Inc.”  In 2002 Docter, along with Roger Gould, would earn a third nomination for the animated short film “Mike’s New Car.” 

• June 13, 1993 – Trey Parker and Chris Graves, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, receive the Animation Silver Medal award for their film “American History,” which hints at what would develop into Parker’s signature animation style in the animated television series “South Park.”  Parker would go on to earn an Oscar nomination, with Marc Shaiman, for the original song “Blame Canada” from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.”

• June 12, 1994 – Robin Hessman (Brown University) and James Longley (Wesleyan University) receive the Documentary Silver Medal award for their film “Portrait of Boy with Dog.”  Longley would go on to earn two Academy Award nominations – for the documentary feature “Iraq in Fragments” (2006, with John Sinno) and for the documentary short subject “Sari’s Mother” (2007).

• June 9, 1996 – Amanda Micheli of Harvard University receives the Documentary Silver Medal award for her film “Just for the Ride.”  Micheli would go on to receive a nomination, with Isabel Vega, at the 80th Academy Awards for the documentary short “La Corona (The Crown).”

• June 12, 2005 – Shane Aker receives the Animation Gold Medal award for his film “9.”  Acker would later earn an Animated Short Film nomination with “9” at the 78th Academy Awards.  Two of Acker’s fellow Student Academy Award winners from that year would also become Oscar nominees: Dan Krauss for the documentary short subject “The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club” and Ulrike Grote for he live action short subject “Ausreisser (The Runaway).”

• June 9, 2007 – At 34th Student Academy Awards Ben Wu of Stanford University earns his second Student Academy Award, a Documentary Gold Medal award, for “Cross Your Eyes Keep Them Wide.”  He had received a Documentary Silver Medal award in 2005, with Erin Hudson, for “Unhitched,” making him one of only six two-time winners in Student Academy Award history.

2007 Student Academy Awards were also presented to:

Kun-I Chang for “Fission” (Alternative, Gold).  “Fission,” has been traveling the festival circuit, earning such awards as the FX MIX Awards at the Bitfilm Festival in Germany and the Grand Prize at the Taiwan International Animation Festival.  He collaborated with director Scott Macklin on a documentary project about social activism in South Africa.  Currently, Chang works as a designer and animator for a production house.

Sarah Wickliffe for “Art’s Desire” (Animation, Gold – tie).  Wickliffe is an animator at a New York based preschool television studio, Little Airplane, where she works on the Nickelodeon hit "The Wonderpets!" Additionally, she is animating a new show for the BBC, "Third and Bird."  

Youngwoong Jang for “Mirage” (Animation, Gold – tie).  Jang recently completed work as a lighting technical director on “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” and is currently working on “Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs.”  His winning student film, “Mirage,” will be launching on iTunes and HBO Latin later this year.

Bevin Carnes for “A Leg Up” (Animation, Bronze).  Carnes recently completed the training program at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and is currently an apprentice animator on "Bolt," the new CG feature due to be released in winter 2009.  Carnes was profiled on “Good Morning America” earlier this year. 

Megan Thompson for “Ladies of the Land” (Documentary, Silver).  After “Ladies of the Land” received a Gracie Allen Award and screened at film festivals, Thompson signed distribution deals with The Cinema Guild and Earth Cinema Circle.  This summer, as an associate producer for the PBS television program “Now,” Thompson and will be traveling to the remote Pacific island nation of Kiribati to shoot and produce a story on climate change.

Bent-Jorgen S. Perlmutt and Nelson Walker, III for “Lumo” (Documentary, Bronze). Nelson recently finished the Kham Participatory Video Series, a 4-DVD set of films made in collaboration with local Tibetan communities. He teaches a production workshop at Columbia University and is currently working on a feature-length documentary called “A Nomad’s Life,” which chronicles a summer in the life of a nomadic Tibetan family.  BJ is currently directing a feature-length documentary about two vegetarian professors from New York who decide to go hunting in Wisconsin and eat what they kill.

Patrick Alexander for “Rundown” (Narrative, Gold).  Patrick attended the Nantucket Writer’s Colony in the fall and is working on feature-length screenplay for “Rundown.”  He is currently directing a documentary in Chad, Africa for US Doctors for Africa.  The documentary will follow a team of doctors on a plane that transforms into a portable hospital.

Phillip Van for “High Maintenance” (Narrative, Silver).  “High Maintenance” won the Delta Fly-In Movies competition, in which more than 10,000 passengers voted for their favorite in-flight film, and is currently available on Atomfilms.com.

Anthony Green for “Screening” (Narrative, Bronze). 

Toke Constantin Hebbeln for “Nevermore” (Honorary Foreign Film).  Hebbeln recently signed with the William Morris Agency and is developing two new films with emerging German screenwriters.