There's no question that legendary filmmaker Wes Craven is considered a visionary by many for his films in the horror film genre, spanning from "The Last House on the Left" and "The Hills Have Eyes," to his "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" franchises.

But the term visionary will take on a whole new meaning Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles for Craven and other film, television and media luminaries at the 34th annual Vision Awards. Presented by Retinitis Pigmentosa International, the honors will recognize select contributors in the entertainment, business and scientific communities who have either exhibited artistic vision or visionary leadership, or have helped in the ongoing fight against degenerative blindness.

Among the honorees are actors Forrest Whitaker and Andy Garcia. Craven's honor Saturday will appropriately come for being a "Director of Vision."

"The obvious part is that we all need eyes to do so much what we do," Craven said in a recent @ The Movies interview, contemplating the importance of eyesight as it relates to his field. "But I think it's nice that the awards are about the concept of vision as a physical thing as well as a mental and spiritual thing. It's a nice thing to be reminded of."

Craven admits that, up to this point, he hasn't been involved in such programs for the visually-impaired like TheatreVision -- a system designed to let the blind to enjoy and experience films in theaters through the use of special recorded soundtracks that describe the action on screen.

"I have only recently become aware of it and think it's a remarkable thing," Craven said. "I guess it's more common to think of devices to aid people with hearing problems, because it's easy to think that people with vision problems just don't go to movies. But it's so remarkable to find out that there are techniques that are being developed to help people participate in what many have called 'the American art form,' with filmmaking."

And while he's been awakened by such advances in theater presentation, Craven is proud of the fact that he's always been ahead of the curve as far as considering film just as much an audio medium as a visual medium.

"When I talk to students, I always say that I have two films: the one that you can see, and perhaps more important, especially in the kinds of films I make, is the audio world that you create," Craven said.

Also referring to the audio component as "the sonic world," Craven said the realm of sound is vast in many different ways.

"You can do more because it's a lot less expensive to create than filming something or creating it digitally," Craven explained. "Secondly, you trigger things through sound from people's minds and memories that are very powerful that can create images and feelings that you couldn't do yourself because you don't know what's in people's minds. I've always worked very hard on creating a film that you could almost close your eyes and feel. And I'm not just talking about scary music. It's about sound environments."

Effectively, Craven doesn't treat the moviegoer as somebody who's paid admission to be an observer of his films -- but an active participant.

"I once when I was watching a concert of a famous rock band whose name is slipping out of my mind now, at a certain point I realized that the guitarist wasn't just playing the guitar -- he was playing the audience," Craven recalled. "I thought, 'Wow, what a fantastic concept, that he's really somehow unified in a way that in a sense he's playing the audience.' But then I talked with someone who's a great fan of that band who said, 'No, the audience is playing him.'"

"It completed the leap of the concept that in a sense that the filmmaker needs the audience as an instrument to play, and in a sense, the audience plays the filmmaker because they bring their volitions to a film," Craven added. "It's a very complex concept once you realize that it's a mutual thing that's happening and not a static thing where you create a product and impose it on an audience. There's things going on back and forth all of the time."

Of course, the vital backdrop that Craven often uses to engage his audience is the element of fear. But Craven isn't merely using fear to scare his audience. Like his use of sound, his use of fear is a two-way (Elm) street.

"The contradictory part of it, at least in the films that I make, is that, in addition to fear, there's a sense of compassion," Craven said. "You're not just trying to impose fear on people, but you're trying to deal with the fear that's in people already when they come into the theater. So, in a sense, it's a therapeutic session. That's how I look at it. I don't look at it like, 'I have all this scary stuff that I'm going to throw at you.' We are now going to talk about the fears that I know that are in you because they're in me, too. And we're going to deal with a story that talks about that stuff."

"The Vision Awards" will be air in September on ION-TV.