***The first deadline for Best Undergraduate Film, Best Postgraduate Film and Best Short Film is 7pm GMT Friday 29th September 2023.***
We will open for all other categories at Midday on Tuesday 12th September 2023 and our overall deadline for all remaining categories is 7pm GMT Monday 30th October 2023.
Submissions made after these dates may not be considered.
Submission fee refunds cannot be made.
BAA Notifications ** important **
BAA will notify the submitter of the progress of their submission(s) directly via email.
This will originate from a BAA team “(‘persons name’ or ‘office’)@britishanimationawards.com” address.
BAA uses FilmFreeway as the main submissions portal service and some notifications will originate from FilmFreeway, however, any and all communications by email from the festival team will override and take final authority over FilmFreeway notifications. In all cases BAA will notify the submitter of the successful shortlisted/nominated production in the relevant category or categories directly.
Due to the nature of FilmFreeway, if a single production is submitted across several categories, FilmFreeway allocates one tracking number and does not have the ability to notify progress for each category. As a result, one notification might originate from FilmFreeway to update progress and change of status which might not correlate with the actual BAA selection process of each of the categories.
We regret that we cannot inform all entrants individually if their film has not made the shortlist/nomination/finalist stage.
1. Definitions:
British Animation Awards Limited (“BAAL”) organises the British Animation Awards (“the BAAs”).
"British" means a production whose main creative and entrepreneurial impetus is UK based. The credited director or producer is resident in the UK, and whose production company is UK-registered. i.e. without UK-based creative impetus, the work would not exist.
"Qualifying Production Period" means a film or production whose copyright notice bears the date 2022 or 2023.
“Animation” means a frame-by-frame produced sequence of handmade/handcrafted still images made through various methods that appear to move when played in real-time.
2. Entries:
Entry Forms/Submissions to all categories on FilmFreeway including all requested materials and key information (stills, logos, final approved credits, high resolution video clips) must be fully completed, supplied and paid for (if applicable).
We have two deadlines, the first three categories, as above, submitted by 7pm BST 29th September and all other remaining categories by 7pm GMT on October 30th 2023.
Please note: production stills, video clips, logos and credits must be approved for BAA publicity and ceremony use and submitted along with the entry. BAAL cannot wait for delayed material. Any submission with incomplete materials could be liable to rejection.
We regret that we cannot inform all entrants individually if their film has not made the shortlist. Only productions that have been successfully selected/nominated will be notified by BAA.
Submitter(s) must have full permission and rights to submit the works for both visual image and audio including music.
3. Categories:
Only films relevant to the twenty Open Entry Categories may be entered.
The Audience Award, the Outstanding Contribution Award and the Children’s Choice Award are the only non-jury decided awards.
The films selected for the Audience Award will be mainly shortlisted from the short film and music video submissions categories. Some films may originate from other submission categories. This will be at BAAs discretion.
The films selected for the Audience Award will be available online for a given period of time from January to mid-February 2024 as specified on the BAA website.
Subscribers to the Audience Award will be allowed to vote once only for their favourite film or music video for the Audience Award. Once the subscriber’s single vote is made it cannot be changed and is irreversible.
BAAL reserves the right to reassign a film to a different category in the best interests of the entrant. In this event the submitter will be advised.
4. Restrictions:
All Films entered for Open Entry, must be British as defined in Clause 1.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The BAAs team are aware of the current conversations around Artificial Intelligence and are not opposed to productions that include a small or reasonable volume of AI generated assets. The BAAs strongly encourage human creative input over machine and will be reviewing our position regarding AI after BAA 2024.
The BAAs encourage any production with a significant level of AI created content to consider entering the ‘Wildcard’ category.
Animation and Live Puppetry
Any production using real-time recorded puppetry must also include at least 51% content of animation (using a frame by frame production method).
5. Liabilities of BAAL:
BAAL shall not be held responsible or liable for any loss, whether direct or consequential, or damage to preview and judging material, or any other material submitted or dispatched to BAAL by entrants.
BAAL shall not be liable for errors or omissions in any printed matter published or circulated relating to the BAAs.
BAAL shall not be liable for any loss or damages caused by submissions made without the correct authorities and permissions in place (such as copyright) with the submitter and the submitted works.
6. Material for Judging, Screening and Promotion:
Any submitted production that is selected/shortlisted/nominated will be known as a finalist.
Entrants will be asked to provide high quality viewing material and the BAAs may use extracted clips, up to 40” (maximum), and stills for promotional use across all established media.
Entries to the Best Short Film and Best Music Video and films selected for the Audience Award categories must give permission for the limited online screening of the film(s), and for promotional use of clips, and be free and able to do so, in respect of the rights holders.
7. Pre-selection, Judging, Jury Decisions and Enforcement of Regulations:
The decisions of the pre-selection committees, judges, jury members, BAA director and the management group appointed by BAAL shall be final and no correspondence by any means of communication shall be entered into with entrants, or other persons, seeking to challenge or dispute those decisions.
BAAL reserves the right to waive, change or otherwise reconstruct these Rules and Regulations in the best interests of the competition.
8. Shortlist
All entries in all categories (with the exception of Audience Award, Outstanding Contribution Award and Children’s Choice Award) will go through a pre-selection jury process to produce a shortlist for each category. The shortlist goes to a second final jury. The juries for each category then determine the finalists (also known as the ‘nominees’) along with the overall category winner.
