My brother Rob and I worked together for the better part of this past year to create an award for a video festival. My brother was an archaeologist and a friend of his presents an annual film festival, The Archaeology Channel International Film Festival, which to this point has never really had an award to present to the winners. We offered to create an award for our material cost only, as they are a non-profit and it was our way of volunteering to help.
Rob and his friend are both in the same city, but Iām an hour + away, so it took a long time, many phone calls, emails, and many iterations to arrive at the final award. The logo was provided by the festival, the build was designed by Rob, and the files were created and cut/engraved by me. After many changes and prototypes, we finally finished it just a couple of weeks ago.
There were 6 awards. Two of them were for audience favorite and four of them were for best film by jury. The latter 4 went to the UK.
They are constructed to stand aloneā¦ā¦4 panels of acrylic separated by standoffs and designed to use ambient light to illuminate. First panel is plain clear acrylic. Second panel is black acrylic with the logo cut out and with an inlaid engraved frosted acrylic panel showing the film name/winners name. Third panel is frosted acrylic with the film festival name and year, and the final panel is clear acrylic.
After I had cut and engraved all the panels, I mailed them to Rob and he assembled them to hand over to his friend.
During production and assembly it was a real challenge to keep the panels dust and fingerprint free, and even after being so diligent, you can see dust motes in these photosā¦ā¦but, it was the best we could do. Iām sure many of you know exactly how difficult it is to photograph acrylic successfully.
Those turned out great! How fun to collaborate with your brother to produce such a fabulous award. Iām sure the winners will be thrilled to receive these.
These look just fabulous and so professional yet unique. Iām sure the awardees will love and cherish them.
I learned another term: āstandoffsā. half the time I just donāt know what Iām looking for until I learn about it here.
Have you tried one of those mini keyboard vacuums to clean in between? Theyāre surprisingly useful for other things than keyboards.
Rob and I both have some plastic polish that helpsā¦and helps reduce static electricity which is the main culpritā¦but even after all that, they still attract stuff.
and @Julesā¦weāre sort of figuring on it. At least by next year all weāll have to do is re-do the snap in panel with the winners name/film on it. The nearly yearās time in designing and prototyping will be a thing of the past. The āheavy liftingā will have been done this year.
Ohā¦and one little side note about functionality. I made several tiny spacers out of clear acrylic for Rob to use in some of the places with the standoffs. They were a size he probably couldnāt have bought and he was mightily impressed.
Iām not an artist, so Iām probably wrong here, but you may consider changing the 2019 as well. Although, would an archaeologist really care??? With rare exceptions like Pompeii, theyāre not the most precise people when it comes to dates.
