We question everything, over and over again

Deliberations are robust, with all work rigorously interrogated. It deserves nothing less.

However big the category, it’s our duty to look at the entire body of work and scrutinize everything through all the different lenses. Whether it’s the idea, the strategy or the craft, our job is to look deeper and measure against criteria.

Every year you see pieces winning over and over again across multiple subcategories. There’s no question they’re fabulous ideas. But are they the best for filmcraft? The best for innovation? The best for the whole creative kit and caboodle?

We examine everything forensically. It’s easy to take a brilliant idea and blanket the category with it. But if it’s going to clean up, it needs to knock your socks off in each of those subcategories.

Golds can come out of nowhere

There’s always standout work that grabs everyone’s attention. But there are also Golds that come right out of nowhere.

Jury rooms are full of different opinions, but the push and pull of professional debate has a remarkable knack for making disparate opinions come together. Sometimes, someone will advocate for work that you’d previously ruled out, yet when you re-evaluate it through a different lens, you suddenly go: ‘Wait a minute … that’s amazing!’ That person offers a cultural or business perspective that makes everyone value something they didn’t appreciate before. In those moments, you see a shift in the entire jury, where something you never thought would make it off the shortlist suddenly bags Gold.

Want proof? Try this. Every juror on an “awarding jury” is allowed to bring back something that isn’t on the shortlist; a personal favorite that didn’t make the original cut. Last year, one such piece was brought back by a juror…. and it went on to win Grand Prix.

That success is a testament to the dynamics of diverse human debate and the drama that occurs in “The Room Where It Happens.”

Now… how can we win that Tony?