Entries are now open to the second Shiny Awards, the music video awards show for emerging directors, which will be held at The Mill, London, on Tuesday, 26th February 2019.

There are awards given for unsigned or freelance and recently signed directors in four categories emphasising the Shiny Awards commitment to diversity: Videos by Women; Videos by People of Colour; Videos by Other Under-Represented Groups; Videos by Men. 

Caroline Bottomley, founder of Shiny, explains the thinking behind how the categories are organised in this year's Shiny Awards. “After much thought-provoking debate, we think quotas are the only real way to address inequality. After a lot of effort to encourage entries from under-represented groups, still over 2/3rds of our 300+ entries are from white men. We want to make sure Shiny holds up diverse role models to the next wave of director talent, so choosing winners according to diversity category is the way to go.”

However when the awards are given the category tag will be removed so that they will just be announcing ‘Unsigned Winners’ and ‘Recently Signed Winners’. "Many people we spoke to didn’t want to win ‘because I am black’ or ‘because I’m a woman’. We think it’s politically interesting to remove the category tag for winners." 

The other reason for Shiny’s diversity approach is also about level playing fields. “…If women, POC, disabled people have to live in categories, then it’s fair everyone has to live in a category, hence ‘Videos by Men’. 

Now in its second year, the Shiny Awards discover and celebrate exciting new directors for the commercial video industry. The jury panel is drawn from over 60 leading production companies, ad agencies, publishers and brands. The inaugural awards surfaced many brand new talents since variously signed, commissioned or featured by Academy Films, Tate Modern, Converse, Adidas, Nike, Las Bandas Be Brave, Getty, Farfetch and many more.

The final deadline for entries is Sunday, February 3rd. To enter go to the Shiny Awards website.

To attend the Awards, held on Tuesday 26th Feb, at The Mill in London, buy tickets here.