On Not Winning An Award

Losing sucks. It’s awful. Anyone who tells you different is lying. It hurts. 

I’m not talking about sports, where there are great stories of teams showing great character, determination and dignity in a hard fought defeat. At the most recent football World Cup, the US soccer team won over a legion of fans with their valiant efforts in going further into the competition than expected and their dedication and hard work as they were knocked out. They showed huge commitment and effort until the last moment and they were widely appreciated and respected for it.

In the film industry we have awards ceremonies and too often winning an award becomes a mark of whether the work you’ve done is of quality. Are you going to hire a filmmaker or an award-winning filmmaker? 

But while not winning can make you feel like a loser, that’s really not how filmmaking works. The audience you make the film for is rarely the same group in charge of handing out awards. But if the film resonates with an audience it can have a huge imact on their lives and in the wider world. 
So don’t feel too glum if you don’t win an award. It’s nice to be recognised, of course, who wouldn’t want that? But it’s far better to change the world. So let’s aim for that instead.
This post was inspired by the fact that we were nominated for a CorpComms Award for best use of video, for our series The New Guy, which we’re incredibly proud of and I think is probably our best work. 

We did not win.