“Dazed and amazed.”

That was the reaction of Theo Kapodistrias and his wife Marllie watching the 2021 Prism Prize ceremony on YouTube last week after “Thirteen,” the provocative animated video he made for Toronto rapper Haviah Mighty, was announced as the winner of the grand prize of $20,000.

“It was very surprising and emotionally intense,” said Kapodistrias, 38, a graphic designer who worked 12 to 14 hour days for three months to complete the project for the song described by Mighty as “a history lesson three minutes”. ”

“My wife and I were watching and she started crying, and we were both kind of dazed and amazed.

“I spent a lot of time alone working on this video and my wife was there watching me work on it. It was a great moment for both of us.”

Taken from Mighty’s 2019 Polaris Music Prize-winning “13th Floor,” the song places the origins of American slavery in a modern context, Kapodistrias says. “It’s a really powerful song.

“I just had a solid vision of what it was going to look like. I really liked the storytelling.”

As much as the win was a win for Kapodistrias and Mighty, who will split the winnings 50/50, it was a feather in the hat for Louis Calabro, one of the founders of the Prism Prize, an award that celebrates music videos and their creators.

Now in its ninth year, the annual awards ceremony has grown from humble beginnings with a $5,000 grand prize and people’s choice award to six special award categories and a $20,000 grand prize.

Finalists receive $1,000; all winners receive equipment rental grants of $2,500, and a joint initiative with RBCxMusic called the Music Video Production (MVP) Project offers video production grants ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, with full funding $300,000 per year.

“We’ve come a long way,” says Calabro, vice president of programming and awards at the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. He co-founded the Prism Prize in 2012 with his father, John, an author and former high school teacher, and Neil Haverty, a film composer and musician who is the lead director of the MVP project.

It was established during the waning popularity of music video television programming, when the golden days of MTV, MuchMusic and Country Music Television Canada were behind us.

But lately, thanks to YouTube and the growing trend of TikTok, there has been a surge of interest in the medium.

Calabro says part of his intention in founding the Prism Prize was to serve as a bridge for a creative community that was not sufficiently recognized.

“What we were seeing at the time – particularly in Toronto, but across the country – was a wealth of talent on the music video making side.

“We were seeing really creative work done by people like Scott Cudmore, Emily Kai Bock, a collective called Exploding Motor Car…we thought it was legitimate art, and it just seemed like the norm was that more and more more interesting videos were to be made.

“We also understood – working for the Academy of Canadian Cinema at the time – that these filmmakers were never really well known.”

Calabro also said that music videos were being released at an alarming rate and that a TV broadcast was not necessarily the end game for creators.

“There was a floodgate that was starting to open as creators were just putting things online. Those elements really got us thinking, ‘Let’s find a way to celebrate this work.'”

Calabro sent more than 115 emails to journalists, filmmakers, curators and visual artists to survey interest in the idea of ​​the prize.

“It was amazing how many people came back not just with a ‘yes’, but with an enthusiastic ‘yes’,” he recalls. “A lot of the comments I got were, ‘It’s so late’ and ‘We’ve been watching videos forever.’ The industry came together and supported it right away, so that was huge for us.

Using his experience and connections as DJs and event planners, Calabro and his partners hosted the first awards show at Soho House, consisting of 10 finalists. Noah Pink won the grand prize for Rich Aucoin’s “Brian Wilson Is ALiVE” and Arcade Fire’s “Sprawl II,” directed by Vincent Morisset, won the audience award.

Calabro’s most important Prism mandate was to unify a disparate community.

“We just made it as inclusive as possible,” he says. “We invited everyone we could who made a music video that year; literally you could have been a 19 year old kid and you were invited if you were doing a music video. This philosophy has continued until today.

Over the years, Prism found more and more sponsors (Slaight Music, William F. White, FACTOR and Telefilm Canada among them). The categories have been expanded to include special achievements; the Arthur Lipsett “one to watch” award; the Hi-Fidelity Award and more recently the Willie Dunn Award for Canadian Pioneer.

Several winners have gone on to stellar careers. Noah Pink is the creator and writer of National Geographic’s “Genius” and “Tetris” series on Apple TV Plus. Shortly after winning her Lipsett Award, Karena Evans directed the “Nice for What” and “Everyday Life” music videos for Drake and Coldplay, respectively, and directed two reboot episodes of “Gossip Girl” for HBO Max.

“Everything went crazy for her,” Calabro said. “She’s probably one of the most in-demand female directors right now…that’s kind of what award shows are supposed to do: act as that boost that someone could use for their own career.

“That’s probably what I’m most proud of is that we’re right there right before people explode.”

Although the pandemic has disrupted the holidays — the 2020 and 2021 awards have been streamed online — Calabro is waiting for the day when the show will not only host a live audience, but be televised.

“We want to be able to reach as many people as possible and we want to reach a different audience, and television is one of them.”

COVID-19 apparently hasn’t slowed down creators, who have submitted more than 300 videos each for the past two years for nomination consideration.

Kapodistrias was happy to be one of them, and while it’s a bit early to determine the impact of his Prism Prize win on his career, the shared spoils will pay off some of his student loans and free up time to work on a graphic novel.

“I think with this win it will give me some leeway,” he said.

Other 2021 Prism Prize Winners

Audience Award: Evan Elliot, Lance Sampson and Aquakulture, “Pay It Forward”

Special achievement: Jordan Ouram

Lipset Price: Gennelle Cruz

Hi-Fidelity Award: Crack Cloud Media Collective

Willie Dunn Award: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Beatrice Deer

SHARE: