On Thursday 22^nd November, the Royal Television Society Scotland gathered at Glasgow’s Radisson Red for their final event of 2018. The room was bustling with laughter, chat and anticipation.

Previous winners of the esteemed awards; Ben Philip, Louise Thornton, Duncan Cowles and Simon Parsons, attended to talk about their success and the Chair of Judges Lisa Hazlehurst, Head of Lion TV Scotland would be announcing the 2019 categories and criteria.

To begin the evening and set the scene, an impressive short film created by City of Glasgow College students was shown of the 2018 awards.

RTS Committee Member Paul Tucker and Depute Director of the Creative Media Academy at UWS, then took the floor and interviewed each of the four 2018 award winners.

Maramedia received the Children’s Award “Gudrun the Viking Princess”, showcased on CBeebies.  Simon Parsons, when asked about his idea behind the creation, said: “We wanted to create something combining natural history with the Viking times, but through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl.” Paul Tucker asked Parsons: “What does winning an RTS award do for a production team?” Parsons answered, “It’s wonderful. It’s difficult to win but if you do, it’s a really positive thing.”

Louise Thornton, BBC: The Social, collected the Innovation Award for “Kidder”. Thornton said she wanted to find out if you could get an idea about who someone is through the eyes of someone’s mobile phone. This led her to visiting many colleges to get an idea about how the 18-24 demographic wanted to be portrayed. When asked what she thought about mobile phone-screening becoming the new way to watch film, she said: “A different mode of drama is definitely something to celebrate."

Ben Philip, STV News at Six presenter and winner of Young Journalist, said that winning the award was a “real confidence boost”. When asked if he had noticed any improvements in his career since winning the award he said: “I’ve noticed more people approaching me for work. The university I attended in Aberdeen has asked me to give ‘inspirational’ speeches to current media students.”

Philip appeared very humbled by his win, “It was such a privilege and is something I’ll never forget.”

His advice to students wishing to pursue a career in the media is: “Listen and work hard. Never think that any work or experience is beneath you.”

Duncan Cowles from Relative Films won Short Form Content Award for his creation “Taking Stock”, commissioned by Channel 4. Tucker asked, “What was the idea behind the creation?”, Cowles replied: “I wanted to make something honest about freelancers, but I wanted people to enjoy themselves. The sarcastic, comic awkward narration makes Cowles an obvious winner due to his cleverness, wit, and sheer talent. 

To finish the evening, Lisa Hazlehurst shared details of next year’s awards. Hazlehurst said: “There are around 200 entries each year with 24 categories plus we have The RTS Scotland Award.”

Hazlehurst announced that there will no longer be an Innovation Award. However, she was “very excited” to announce that there is a new Writer’s Award being introduced for 2019. This award is to “recognise the wealth of writing talent in Scotland. The judges will be looking for originality, innovation, style and creativity.”

The online portal for entries, goes live Thursday 29^th November and will close Thursday 31^st January 2019. A much longer nine-week window than previous year. Give your entry the time it deserves and try to get your submission done well before the end of January.

To submit your work, please visit: https://awardsentry.rts.org.uk/entrant/

Entry fee is £75 plus VAT (£90) for each submission and payable before 31 January 2019.

The 2019 award ceremony returns to Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket on Wednesday 12^th June. Presenters Des Clarke and Jennifer Reoch will be hosting the awards for the third year.

Creative Video Production, CVP will be sponsoring the reception drinks for the sixth year. Post production company Arteus will once again provide their invaluable support.