Mr Chairman, we have problem

Well, it was all going well with the little zapper barcode thingamajig until we got to the dreaded medal round for craft TV.

Then the Y2K bug kicked in something wicked. While the barcode system was good for the IN/OUT bit the first round, it wasn’t so cool when we got to the medal round.

The zapping bit was fun. Xbox it wasn’t. But it was fun while it lasted. Sadly, the downloading of data, and the arithmetic that followed, was very, very, very, slow.

I think we were averaging 40 minutes just to count the damn things. And that was just for the finalists!

Next we had to go over a category like animation. So we take one TVC that made the shortlist and vote on whether or not it still made a finalist.

Wait 30 minutes. Again.

And once that is decided we vote on the bronze winners.

Wait 30 minutes more.

Then vote again to see if it makes it to a silver.

Wait 30 minutes more.

Then vote for it as a gold.

After all that, we still have the option of discussing the true meaning of the category and the relative merit of the entry.

And that was 1 entry. We only have 39 more to go.

At the rate we were going, we’d probably finish the voting by Chinese New Year.

It was quite frustrating. Until we decided not to be a slave to technology. Instead, it made more sense just to stick to the spirit of the original CAP ruling.

And that was to have secret voting along with an open discussion. So each member on the jury got to see and discuss each category and then vote in secret.

Last year, Tian It put up dividers between each jury member. It looks ridiculous but it works. That way each person could vote separately with their hands without knowing who or what the person next to them was voting on.

We followed that model and it worked brilliantly.

We reviewed each piece entry by entry. The majority of hands ruled. It went something like this.

Noor was say…

“Is it a finalist? Hands please.”, “Okay, it’s a finalist.”, “Is it a bronze? No, not enough for a bronze.”

“Next entry.” said the mighty Noor.

I really think this worked well. This also gave them a chance to see how the show was panning out. Juries take on a life of their own in most shows. Either they go on a gold rush, or they slash and burn everything in existence.

This is usually the time we pull out the archives and compare this year’s shortlist with the previous years. Just so there is something to refer to.

Total top secret voting (with statistical averaging) lead to a total of 2 bronze medals on one crazy year. That’s probably not a very good show at all. Stuff like this leaves the poor chairman with little else to do but lower the average below the majority.

Not sure why, but people seem less generous with the hardware when they are just writing a number down on a piece of paper.

So I called for an hour break as me and Noor smashed the machines and literally turned the tables over.

The verdict was to go “Old School”. Chairs and voting booths. It all looked quite comical, but it was just as effective.

Each guy then got to vote without the influence of the others around him or her. And they got to talk the work UP or talk it DOWN.

Like unicorns, gold medals and great servicing people are hard to come by. And that’s the way it should be.

Next year I hope we do better in the craft areas. I I also hope the local production companies will enter more work on behalf of their clients and we will really start making some progress.

We will judge the remaining TVC medals with the advertising jury on Thursday. We saw some good work on the finalist round, but not anything that will run away with the show I’m afraid.