shots Rankings

Welcome to our new top-20 league table: a chance for us to showcase the creativity of the many companies and individuals that make this industry great

“Statistics,” as the old adage goes, “damn lies and statistics.” Figures can be used to say pretty much anything in pretty much any way. Spin, those in the know call it. Crap, is what many of us refer to it as. However, numbers can be our friend. How else would we ascertain how many people bought the latest X Factor single? Or how many runs England beat the Australians by in the recent test match? Yes, well-accounted numbers can be helpful. We’ve taken that thought and run with it by creating a system that will henceforth collate the work featured on the shots DVD and shots.net and turn it into league tables showing the creative impact of certain companies and people, culminating in a top-20 league table.

We will look at five sections of the industry: production companies, agencies, post houses, brands and directors. For this initial list, we have collated the figures from 1 January 2010 to 24 January 2011, and the new shots.net site will update the tables after each issue is published. We will print a snapshot of the tables in shots at the end of each calendar year. The points system used to create them is outlined below.

Criteria
When it comes to the shots.net site, any piece of work that appears as a Contender, be it a TV spot, a short film, a music video or something else, will receive one point. 
Appearing in the shots DVD Showcase section will bag you the most points: a full five. Appearing elsewhere on any shots DVD (Country Feature/Music Videos/New Directors) will get you three points. We decided, though, not to count any work appearing on the DVD Special Features section because that is, more often than not, made up of retrospective work that will have featured on shots previously.