The inaugural Prism Prize was handed out last night in Toronto, which celebrates the best Canadian music video of the year. The award and $5,000 grand prize went to Halifax's Rich Aucoin and director Noah Pink for the "Brian Wilson Is A.L.I.V.E." video.
The song is from Aucoin's 2011 debut album, "We're All Dying o Live," and a video was released late last year. In the clip Aucoin pays homage to the Beach Boys leader by re-enacting the story of Wilson's life in a constant rotation of sets, costumes and make-up.
Aucoin was not in attendance to accept the award, but offered a quick "holy shit! thanks!" on Twitter and also congratulated Pink. Pink was at the Soho House last night, though, to take home the giant novelty cheque and thanked everyone involved in the production following the announcement.
"The video has a simple and smart concept and the tone is fun and frantic and that clearly resonated with our jury," Prism Prize founder Louis Calabro said in a press release. "I'd like to congratulate all of our short-list nominees and give kudos to all the great directors and musicians making art in our country.
"There were some very exceptional videos made in 2012 and I can't wait to see what's next."
Aucoin and Pink beat out nine other videos for the title, including clips from Drake, Grimes (who was nominated for two videos), Arcade Fire, Metz, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Maylee Todd, Mother Mother and Young Rival.
A second prize was handed out to Montreal's Arcade Fire and director Vincent Morisset for their interactive clip for "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)." They took home the first Prism Prize Audience Award. Votes for this were tallied up from a public poll.
The Prism Prize, similar to Canada's annual Polaris Music Prize, is a national juried award (comprised of over 90 jurors this year) that judges videos on artistic merit, originality, creativity, style, innovation and effective execution.