‘Agents of SHIELD’ Takes Home HPA Best Visual Effects Award

After five whirlwind seasons of Agents of SHIELD, the show’s excellent visual effects team has finally received some recognition, taking home a prize during last night’s HPA Awards.

Mark Kolpack, the show’s Visual Effects Supervisor, shared the good news in a tweet, which is spreading throughout the fandom like wild fire.

The show won “Best Visual Effects in Over 13 Episodes” for “Orientation: Part 1,” the fifth season premiere that brought Coulson and crew to outer space… in the future!

The episode was written by the show’s executive producers, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, and was directed by Jesse Bochco, who has helmed ten episodes throughout the series’ run.

During its five seasons, Agents of SHIELD, which was the first ever television series to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hasn’t always gotten the love it deserves. While Kolpack and crew have been nominated for two Emmys in the past, it’s difficult for a network show to beat the budget of Game of Thrones, who ousted the Agents of SHIELD effects team in 2014 and 2015.

The HPA’s acknowledgement of shows with more than 13 episodes is a great way to separate HBO-type budgets from that of the networks. However, Agents of SHIELD won’t qualify for the category next year as the sixth season was only given a 13-episode order.

The show had stiff competition this year, going up against episodes of Supergirl, Hawaii Five-O, Legends of Tomorrow, and NCIS: LA. The award is shared between Kolpack and Sabrina Aronld of Marvel, and Kevin Yuille, David Rey, and Hnedel Maximore of FuseFX, a company known for providing visual effects serviced throughout Hollywood.

The HPA, or Hollywood Post Alliance, “serves the community of individuals and businesses who provide creative and technical expertise, support, tools and infrastructure for professional content creation, distribution and archive,” according to their website.

Some of the cast was quick to congratulate the VX team on Twitter. “Soooo well deserved,” tweeted Ming-Na Wen (Agent Melinda May).

This has been a big month for Agents of SHIELD, which was recently named the most popular Marvel show after a Parrot Analytics study proved its worth to those who weren’t already in the know.

Congrats to Agents of SHIELD, Mark Kolpack, and the entire VF team! Agents of SHIELD will return for a sixth season next summer.