Rules

OK, the nitty-gritty. Here’s what you have to do.

Your films must:

  • Involve a science or engineering topic.
  • Be no more than two and a half minutes in duration.

That’s it. Really. Those are the rules.

OK, there is a little bit more:

  • To be eligible for the SciCast Awards, your film must be made by citizens of, and submitted from, the UK or the Republic of Ireland. We’ll happily receive and publish films from other countries, but sorry, you won’t win anything. If you’d like to run SciCast in your own country, though, do drop us a line!
  • The Institute of Physics sponsor the Physics category, and they require that physics films must include an explanation to be eligible — full details here. For other categories, explanations are encouraged, but not required.
  • The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
  • When you submit your film, we’ll ask you to note if you’re a professional film-maker or science communicator, or if your team has had professional help. The judges may take this information into account, and be assured that they’ll take a very dim view of anyone caught trying to fob us off. Play fair, please — don’t ruin it for everyone else.

One final formal note: SciCast reserves the right not to publish, or to remove from publication, films submitted to it.

Advice

OK, the above are the rules, here’s how you win: Don’t be boring.

Be entertaining, interesting, surprising, imaginative, elegant, beautiful, jaw-dropping, dramatic, awe-inspiring, practical, simple, quick, impressive, slick… or any combination of these. But don’t, under any circumstances, be boring.

Remember: in the end, the whole point of films like those you see in SciCast is to inform the viewer, and the viewer can’t be informed if they’re asleep. Grab and hold their attention — entertain them — and you’ve done the hard part.

Awards categories

We’ll take films about any aspect of science or engineering, and we allocate films to all the categories that seem appropriate as we receive them.

About the 2:30 rule

This ‘two and a half minutes’ thing worries some people. ‘Surely,’ they cry, ‘that can’t be long enough to say anything useful?’ Well, take a look around. We’ve dozens of films that convey heaps of information. If they can do it, so can you. Deciding what to leave out is part of the challenge.

Your film should be try to do one thing, and do it well. The truly excellent films manage to do that with plenty of time to spare.

Oh, and the 2:30 timing includes your end-credits, out-takes, or whatever else you choose to add. We’ll happily receive and will likely publish films longer than 2:30, but they won’t be eligible for the Awards.w