Bryan Alexander

USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid respect to the late actor Anton Yelchin at the 2016 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Awards Presentation on Thursday night.

The evening at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater was dedicated to Yelchin, who died in July at age 27. Yelchin had been a “strong supporter” of the live read aspect of the screenwriting ceremony, according to Rodrigo Garcia, the event director.

Cary Elwes, Aja Naomi King, Alia Shawkat and Yelchin’s Trek co-star John Cho performed the live read from each of 2016's five winning screenplays on Thursday.

Yelchin had been the first actor to volunteer for the first-ever live read event in 2013.

“Anton brought to the reading not only his talent and charisma but also his dedicated spirit,” Garcia told the audience, which included Yelchin’s parents, Viktor and Irina.

Garcia introduced a film reel highlighting Yelchin's career, which included portraying Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek film series and Jacob Helm in the romantic drama Like Crazy.

Elwes said his main reason to perform in the event was to honor Yelchin, his co-star in the upcoming drama We Don’t Belong Here.

“Anton was a real light. And when a light like that goes out in Hollywood you have to make sure everyone remembers how brightly it burned,” Elwes told USA TODAY.

Elwes said he admired Yelchin’s passion for making movies.

“Anton never stopped working, he was literally booked out throughout the year. He loved to work. He loved being on the set. He was the consummate professional,” said Elwes. “This kid had so much to offer this world. But he was cut short in the prime of his life.”

The awards presentation honored four individual screenwriters and one writing team who were selected from 6,915 entries as winners of the 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition.

The winners included:

Michele Atkins, Talking about the Sky (Seattle)

Spencer Harvey and Lloyd Harvey, Photo Booth (Balgowlah, Australia)

Geeta Malik, Dinner with Friends (Los Angeles)

Elizabeth Oyebode, Tween the Ropes (Sunnyvale, Calif.)

Justin Piasecki, Death of an Ortolan (Los Angeles)

Each of the winners will receive a $35,000 prize dedicated to screenwriting assistance.

Atkins, who helped support herself as an Uber driver during the creation of her winning screenplay, remembered from the podium that author Harper Lee had been gifted a year of wages to write, leading to novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

"I continue to think how nice that was for her. But that doesn't happen anymore now does it?" Atkins asked. "But it just did. And it happened to me."