shots Awards 2013: The Good Loser

A few surreptitious boos and whistles aside, polite applause in the face of galling defeat is the standard operating procedure at any award show. A nod, a false smile and the mouthing of something like ‘no, no, they really do deserve it’, is how the well-heeled and courteous advertising industry behaves when defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.

But what if it wasn’t? What if you weren’t a good loser at all? What if you showed some real emotion? That’s the premise for a new online film for (self-promotion alert) the shots Awards 2013. Created by BETC London’s Sigi Egedal and Oli Rimoldi, and directed by MJZ’s Stephen Johnson, the film features the likes of Joint’s Damon Collins, DLKW’s Dave Henderson, Partizan’s Madeline Sanderson, AKQA’s James Hilton, Stink’s Daniel Bergmann and a whole host of others.

The film adheres to the ‘Advertising’s Biggest Night of Disappointment’ line which Egedal and Rimoldi coined for our press campaign. Swearing, crying, thrown objects, more swearing and the threat of violence all feature in a spot that shows some of advertising’s luminaries in a way you’ll never have seen them before and, of course, in a way they’d never act in real life. Probably.  “The shots Awards reward only the very best in the industry,” explains Egedal, “and with 14 awards and only 14 winners there’s no room for sore losers. But what if there was? This film reveals our favourite industry figures as they dig deep (some not so deep) to channel their inner tantrum and repressed hissy fit.”

We are indebted to BETC and MJZ, as well as MPC and The Mill for providing the post, Final Cut for the editing and Wave for the sound design, plus all of our game and talented ‘actors’ who agreed to be in the film.

To get tickets for the shots Awards 2013 on Thursday 28 November at 8 Northumberland Avenue London, click here, and maybe practise your fake grin as well.