February 2009 Archives

Due to popular demand, we're going to sneak a little information out about the 2009 Awards. Judging is happening now (Iain Stewart tells us he's watching the films from internet cafés in South-East Iran. Gosh), and if you haven't seen your film on the main site yet, don't panic - the judges have a special site just for them, which has all the 2008/9 films.

We're planning to announce the nominations next Friday, 6th March, here on the blog. Some of the precise wording of the category names might change (which is to say: you never quite know what's going to be written on a trophy until it comes back from the engravers), but more-or-less the categories are:

• Best Presenter 2009
• Best Original Score 2009
• Award for Technical and Artistic Achievement 2009
  
• Best Biology Film 2009
  
• Best Chemistry Film 2009
  
• Best Earth Science and Environment Film 2009
• The Engineering and Technology Board Best Engineering Film 2009
• The Flipside Most Entertaining Film 2009
• The Institute of Physics Best Physics Film 2009
• EPSRC Best Film (Adults) 2009
• Best Film (Primary) 2009
• Best Film (Secondary) 2009

We liked last year's trophies, they're good weighty things that look terrific in a display case, but up close some of them were a little wonky. Now, the best SciCast films also tend to be a little scruffy around the edges, so we weren't worried, but we knew we had to change the design for the big SciCast d'Or trophy for Best Film. It just about survived this photo, but it was already in several pieces by then, and it didn't survive the afternoon. Oops.

Behold, then, the test shots of the SciCast Awards 2009 - they look like this: