Karen Sproul’s Cannes Diary: Wrap

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Jury boat.jpgExit Films producer Karen Sproul is Australia’s representative on the Film Craft jury. Sproul, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is reporting exclusively for CB.

It’s the day after the awards presentation – everyone is shattered after such a big week, and looking forward to getting home.  Nice airport was evacuated this morning with a bomb scare, so can only hope all goes smoothly on everyone’s return trips.

My mind is still a bit of a blur after our 6 days locked in the jury room, but I am feeling very proud of the choices our jury made.  I feel there was some very strong work this year, with some exceptional craft in every category.

I have learned that the process the craft jury follows is different to many other jury processes, so I’ll try to explain a little.  I think understanding this process will help for future entries.

On our film craft jury we had 10 judges, plus our head of jury, Laura Gregory.  We had a good spread of people – 4 agency producers from top agencies in the US, UK, Germany and Amsterdam; 4 producers from production companies in the US, France, UK and Australia and 3 directors from Sweden, India and Brazil.  All very experienced, having worked on much highly awarded work.

For the first time this year, because of the high volume of entries – in our case 2,400 entries – they decided to have us pre-judge several categories, before arriving at Cannes.  They split the jury into 2 groups, and had us pre-judge 3 categories each, 5 weeks in advance.

Jury.jpgOnce we arrived, they again split us into these same 2 groups and we settled into 2 small, dark rooms and started the judging process in earnest.  We scored on a small iPad, and the results of each vote are known instantly.  The pace of the judging is super fast.  Judging in real time, there is no break for hours at a time, so we get through everything very quickly.  The following day, the groups were shuffled, but again we were judging in 2 groups, and again we were judging separate categories.  We didn’t join together into our full group until the 4th day.

I know this enabled us to judge more quickly, but, again because of the sheer volume, we didn’t all get to see each category until we came back together as a full group.  We felt this was a bit of a flaw in the process.  We would have preferred to have judged as one group the entire time – but this is something for them to work out for next time, as the volume of entries is the hurdle.

The early stage of judging is swift and it’s brutal.  It’s clear there are many projects that shouldn’t be there, and the judges are quick to drop them.  Once we got to the middle of the week, we began to see the good work rising and realised that we had some incredible and beautifully crafted work to decide between.

Every entry that we vote on has the opportunity to put their case to us.  In some categories, there is a video case study presented along with the entry, and most, but not all, entries have a written summary, and reasons why their entry is a deserved winner for that particular category, and giving us some context around their work.  Remembering that we are voting at such a fast pace, this information should be as concise and clear as possible, even bullet points, so we can digest it very easily and quickly.  Amazingly, some entries contained no information, which put them at a huge disadvantage, as the judges had no information to back up their case, or put their entry into context.

Once we started to vote on the shortlist, we start to examine everything in minute detail.  We discuss every entry, and start analysing their craft very closely.  Obviously there is a very high benchmark for even getting to the shortlist in Cannes, and to get a medal means the work has to be extraordinary in every way.

Interestingly, some pieces that were very popular in the earlier stages, run out of puff at this stage.  Many of the pieces that were leading drop off and simply remain on the shortlist, not rising to a medal.  Whereas others seem to grow in strength and support.  We are also able to nominate a piece of work each that we feel has been missed along the way and bring it back into the judging at this point.  For sure this is very important, as several pieces that we brought back rose to take high medals.

This discussion stage is so interesting.  Everyone on the jury has a different opinion.  Each person can put the case forward as to why they want a piece to do well, or why they feel it shouldn’t.  It’s true that some people on a jury are stronger than others, and can certainly convince others to change their minds.  However, when it comes down to the voting, it’s all anonymous, so you can vote any way you feel is right.  On several occasions it felt as though the room was going one way, and surprisingly it went another – that’s democracy.  Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for!

Once the shortlist is settled upon, you start to vote for the medals.  This is the fun part, but also where you have to really think about what each piece should be achieving.  Sometimes there’s only a fine line between whether something will be a bronze or a silver, or whether it will miss out altogether.  As I said, the judges were all very tough, and if anything is a bit off, or some creative decisions haven’t felt right for the end result, this will be enough to keep it down.

FullSizeRender.jpgA couple of other things I would recommend to help with entries, in addition to making sure you give your context and background information in a clear, concise way, is to remember that the judging is based on it being a global award show.  This came up often in the jury room, as if there was a spot that had a very parochial appeal, it would often not get the love in the room.  For that country it might be obvious how clever it was because it connected to a local event, but for others this connection could be lost.  

To that end, it helps if the judges from each country have all the background knowledge of as many of their country’s entries as possible, so they can present the case for those pieces in the jury room.  It’s not that you would ever want to influence anything, but all the other jurors look to each other to give the background for your country’s work, and expect that you can talk on it.  In craft, they’re genuinely wanting to know about the hurdles that were faced in production, or anything unusual in the process that’s contributed to the craft of the piece.

Closing gala.jpgAfter this process it reminds me of how incredibly difficult it is to get awarded a medal at Cannes – the process is so rigorous, and the expectations are so high because everyone in the room has worked at the highest level themselves, so it has to be spectacular to pass this benchmark.  Even to get on the shortlist is a very high achievement in itself.

It was such a rewarding experience, and it inspires me to continue to strive for this standard.  I am very honoured to have had the opportunity to have been a part of this jury and have loved every minute of it.