It was an honour to be part of the LIA Music and Sound Jury this year. I have judged awards online before, but I have never been in a room with such giants of the industry to battle out creative rankings of work using nothing but my words. There were three days to consider the work. The first day was deciding on what was in or out, the second was creative rankings from 1 to 10, and the third day was about awarding the statues. As we looked through the volume of submissions, when a piece of work moved us to laughter (or tears) we knew we were watching great work.
I learnt so much from my fellow jurors, who were all inspiring and articulate. I realised that as a sound designer, I bring my own bias; I love great craft where everything from the concept, direction, editing as well as music and sound choices elevate the emotion as well as the action. I also know I am more fussy about sound choices than the next person.
We discovered along the way that there may be a need for another category – that of music and sound editing. We had deep discussions about craft vs. design, and in conclusion acknowledged that there should be a separate category for work that used editing to a high level of creativity and skill, but could not necessarily be termed sound design, which is more the creation of new sounds.
There were a few trends that emerged, which is always fascinating as the submissions are from all over the world. Children’s choirs were hot this year, female folky singers are still the top choice for earnest messages and interestingly, the dramatic device of sound continuing over black pictures.
We would argue over whether a long piece (6 minutes) could compete against a 30 second TVC. We discussed context in detail. Should the piece before us be considered in a different light due to our knowledge of what has gone before it for the brand? Do we judge things on our perceived potential of a brief? If in our own history we had ‘done’ the brief before, can we keep perspective? Can we keep our bias away from spots that weren't an original concept and simply award for the music or sound?
We cajoled, discussed, battled it out and voted, giving out statues based on one core idea: does the piece exhibit excellence? And that is the beauty about the judging system LIA has designed; a myriad of voices to guide each other and provide context in the consideration of work, as we all have developed bias in our journey of trying to create music and sound design worthy of a statue.
I’d like to thank our Jury President, Sander van Maarschalkerweerd for his steady adjudication and all our jury members for the intellectually stimulating experience, as well as Barbara, Patricia, Wayne and Laurissa for taking such good care of us.
It was an honour to be part of the LIA Music and Sound Jury this year. I have judged awards online before, but I have never been in a room with such giants of the industry to battle out creative rankings of work using nothing but my words. There were three days to consider the work. The first day was deciding on what was in or out, the second was creative rankings from 1 to 10, and the third day was about awarding the statues. As we looked through the volume of submissions, when a piece of work moved us to laughter (or tears) we knew we were watching great work.
I learnt so much from my fellow jurors, who were all inspiring and articulate. I realised that as a sound designer, I bring my own bias; I love great craft where everything from the concept, direction, editing as well as music and sound choices elevate the emotion as well as the action. I also know I am more fussy about sound choices than the next person.
We discovered along the way that there may be a need for another category – that of music and sound editing. We had deep discussions about craft vs. design, and in conclusion acknowledged that there should be a separate category for work that used editing to a high level of creativity and skill, but could not necessarily be termed sound design, which is more the creation of new sounds.
There were a few trends that emerged, which is always fascinating as the submissions are from all over the world. Children’s choirs were hot this year, female folky singers are still the top choice for earnest messages and interestingly, the dramatic device of sound continuing over black pictures.
We would argue over whether a long piece (6 minutes) could compete against a 30 second TVC. We discussed context in detail. Should the piece before us be considered in a different light due to our knowledge of what has gone before it for the brand? Do we judge things on our perceived potential of a brief? If in our own history we had ‘done’ the brief before, can we keep perspective? Can we keep our bias away from spots that weren't an original concept and simply award for the music or sound?
We cajoled, discussed, battled it out and voted, giving out statues based on one core idea: does the piece exhibit excellence? And that is the beauty about the judging system LIA has designed; a myriad of voices to guide each other and provide context in the consideration of work, as we all have developed bias in our journey of trying to create music and sound design worthy of a statue.
I’d like to thank our Jury President, Sander van Maarschalkerweerd for his steady adjudication and all our jury members for the intellectually stimulating experience, as well as Barbara, Patricia, Wayne and Laurissa for taking such good care of us.