Judging

Our competition goes through a multi-round judging system, where each submission is human-reviewed.

Judging

Our competition goes through a multi-round judging system, where each submission is human-reviewed.

Season 1 - Timeline

General Judging Criteria

General Judging Criteria

Thematic Adherence

  • Did the project follow our rules, requirements, and community guidelines?

  • Does the project thematically align with the category it was submitted to?

  • Film: Is the narrative clear and entertaining?

  • Music: Is the song catchy and emotionally resonant?

  • Games: Are the interactions engaging and well designed?

Thematic Adherence

Narrative Design

  • Does the project evoke a sense of emotional impact, connection, or depth?

  • Is the world building intriguing, convincing, and logical?

  • If characters are featured, are they well designed and can you empathize with their choices?

Narrative Design

Emotional Resonance

  • Does the project evoke a sense of emotional impact, connection, or depth?

  • Is the world building intriguing, convincing, and logical?

  • If characters are featured, are they well designed and can you empathize with their choices?

Emotional Resonance

Narrative Design

  • Does the project evoke a sense of emotional impact, connection, or depth?

  • Is the world building intriguing, convincing, and logical?

  • If characters are featured, are they well designed and can you empathize with their choices?

Narrative Design

Creativity & Originality

  • Did the project feature original characters, settings, storylines, footage, music, or IP?

  • Does the project showcase a unique and engaging creative language, world, character design, or aesthetic choices?

  • Did the project feature AI tools in a meaningful way that unlock new possibilities, rather than serve as a gimmick?

Creativity & Originality

Production Value

  • Is the project high quality and without artifacts, bugs, or glitches?

  • Does the editing and implementation enhance flow, pacing, clarity, and engagement?

  • Are transitions, titles, subtitles, graphics, and visual effects thoughtfully implemented?

Production Value

Music & Sound

  • If music is featured, does it match the mood of the project?

  • If dialogue is featured, does it effectively convey emotion, match character design, and align with lip sync timing?

  • If sound effects are featured, do they elevate the immersion and atmosphere?

  • Is the overall soundscape rich, balanced, and well-integrated with the story and visual components?

Music & Sound

Sep 1 - Nov 19

Submission Period

Creator submits their project to the competition.
Nov 1 9 - Dec 1

Preliminary Judging Period

A preliminary jury, comprised of the competition organizers, watches and scores each submission.

This round will determine whether the ideas meet a baseline level of quality to be considered for future judging rounds and reasonably fits the theme, guidelines, and rules of the competition.
The Top 25 submissions per category move onto the next round.
Dec 1 - Dec 21

Final Round

For the Film, Music, and Games divisions, for each individual category, 4 finalist judges will watch and score the Top 10 submissions. For the Sponsor Awards, that sponsor will watch and score the Top 10 submissions that use their tool or are from that community.

The top scoring films, that are contenders will be notified privately that they are being considered for Awards.
Dec 21

Winner Announcement

The winners for each Award will be announced via an online Awards Ceremony Livestream.

The projects per category will also be announced online at this point.

Category Specific Rules & Requirements

Please review each category’s specific requirements below.

Games

Games

Film

Film

Music Video

Music Video

Music Video

Community Guidelines

 The following recommendations are meant to guide creatives using AI to build a strong community that lives up to our core values.

  1. Human creativity is the core component. AI should be used in a significant way in all Submissions, but it can just be one tool in the artist’s toolbox. We will not prescribe exactly how or how much AI content artists should use in their Submissions. 

  2. Your Submission will be judged as a film, music video, or game, not as a piece of AI. As a participant in the Competition, your highest priority should be the fundamentals of storytelling, design, and art. We invite everyone at any point of the creative journey to learn these skills and aim to provide educational resources to help competitors grow in this aspect.

  3. Your Submission will be judged on outputs, not inputs. We will provide trials of many AI Tools. We encourage creators to use whatever tools best fit your Submission or personal creative standards.

  4. We prohibit the use of existing franchises and intellectual property, including brands, logos, characters, footage, cinematic universes and other proprietary content that you do not have permission to use for your intended purpose in connection with the Competition. We recognize that parody can be a significant avenue for creativity, but a generic re-hash of an existing franchise or intellectual property will negatively impact your originality score.

  5. We prohibit the use of “deepfakes” or non-permitted likenesses. Permissions should be acquired for explicit visual likeness and voice likenesses. 

  6. Usage (or non-usage) of AI Tools should be transparent and non-deceptive.

  7. Clear authorship and credit should be given to all direct contributors on a Submission.

  8. We accept films about mature subject matter, but require that they should be done tastefully and with artistic intent. We may lean on certain social media guidelines: for example, if it wouldn’t be able to be posted on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, it won’t be accepted in the Competition.

  9. We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination, racism, sexism, xenophobia, exploitation, bullying, disparagement, or promotions of violence towards any protected group.

  10. Represent people and sensitive subject matter with authenticity and respect. Select AI characters with as much care as you would cast a group of human actors and be thoughtful about musical lyrics. For example, we will have a zero tolerance policy towards stereotypical accents, digital blackface, and racial slurs.

  11. Please consider adding a trigger warning for any Submission featuring potentially harmful, sensitive content, loud noises, and flashing/strobing lights.

References

Our Community Guidelines are inspired by the works of other organizations and thought leaders in the space. Please support them!

  1. Archival Producers Alliance Documentary AI Guidelines

    • https://archivalproducers.org/guidelines-for-ethical-ai-in-documentary-production/

  2. WGA AI Contract Language (2023 Agreement)

    • https://www.wgacontract2023.org/the-campaign/summary-of-2023-wga-mba

  3. SAG-AFTRA AI FAQs and Guidance

    • https://www.sagaftra.org/contracts-industry-resources/ai-resources

  4. Human Artistry Campaign – Seven Core Principles for Artificial Intelligence

    • https://humanartistrycampaign.com/

  5. EGAIR (European Guild for AI Regulation) Manifesto

    • https://egair.eu/manifesto/

  6. Authors Guild Open Letter to AI Companies

    • https://authorsguild.org/whats-new/open-letter-to-ai-companies/

    • https://authorsguild.org/news/authors-guild-releases-ai-best-practices-for-authors/#:~:text=Image%3A%20AI%20Best%20Practices%20for,Authors

  7. Ethical Games

    • https://ethicalgames.org/

    • https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3685207#:~:text=Ethical%20Games%3A%20Toward%20Evidence,based%20guidelines%20for

  8. AI-ARTS Collective Manifesto

    • https://ai-arts.org/manifesto

  9. XAIxArts Manifesto: “Explainable AI for the Arts”

    • https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21220