Handle the Jandal

Handle the Jandal is an annual ceremony in New Zealand that celebrates New Zealand film, music and the Do It Yourself culture. The competition is for music videos of New Zealand music, made by New Zealand filmmakers with no external funding assistance.

The official name is the "Radio Active 89FM Handle the Jandal D.I.Y. New Zealand Music Video Awards".

Handle the Jandal provides the chance for filmmakers – both professionals and amateurs – to produce a short film music video. There are two rules: the music must be New Zealand artists; and entrants can’t use any funding grants to make the video.

History

Handle the Jandal was started in 1997 by Dave Gibbons, Radio Active’s station manager from Wellington, New Zealand. It has grown from a local event to a nationally significant competition (of the fifteen finalists for 2006, nine were from other metropolitan cities outside of Wellington.

Gibbon wanted to marry the film and music industries in Wellington which, at the time, was rising to prominence in the New Zealand entertainment industry.

The location of world-leading film studio Weta, with director Peter Jackson, and the emergence of music artists such as the Black Seeds, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Hollie Smith and Recloose underscore Wellington’s importance to New Zealand’s creative community. Mr Gibbon’s idea was to marry the world of film with that of music and leave the big money and big studio values out of the mix.

The first Handle the Jandal was held at The Paramount Theatre and now is held at the Embassy Theatre, which hosted the world premiere of the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King movie directed by Peter Jackson.

Previous winners who have gone on to prominent careers both in New Zealand and on the international scene include James Barr, Chris Graham, Aaron Beck and Rollo Wendlock, who recently shot a music video for electronic band The Prodigy.

Ninety-three entries were received for the 2006 awards, this exceeded last year’s total of 83 entries.

Competition details

The Radio Active 89FM Handle the Jandal D.I.Y New Zealand Music Video Awards is a yearly competition to judge music videos made by New Zealanders for New Zealand music artists. Entries for the 2006 awards were called for in June 2006 and closed on August 1. Entrants for the Handle the Jandal competition were then whittled down to fifteen finalists for each category by a panel of preliminary judges.

Once the finalists have been decided upon, appointments are made for the final judging panel. Previous judges have been prominent New Zealand personalities and film makers, including Chris Graeme and Taika Waititi.

All but one award is decided upon by the judging panel. The final category is voted upon by attendees at the Handle the Jandal award ceremony.

The Golden Jandal

The Golden Jandal is the award given out at the Handle the Jandal award ceremonies. There are six categories and a grand winner for the Golden Jandal Favourite Video, as judged by the audience and radio listeners.

The awards are:
#Best use of exploitative tactics to promote band
#Best Editing
#Best Cinematography
#Best Concept
#Best Animation
#Rising Star

And, the Favourite Handle the Jandal Video, with awards for second and third places.

Handle the Jandal and Digital Music

At the conclusion of the 2006 award ceremony, a compilation of winners and significant entries will be selected for release on iTunes Australia.

It was recently announced that all 93 music and video clips in this year’s Handle the Jandal will be picked up by the global iTunes network. This is the first time that New Zealand music video clips will be available to iTunes, the world’s largest digital music market.

Handle the Jandal is part of the Jiggy music distribution initiative. The Jiggy initiative is an online network for music artists to sell their individual tracks digitally through mobile phones. It is aligned with The Orchard, a global distribution company that accesses iTunes, MSN, Napster, Yahoo! and EMusic among others, and is the world’s largest supplier of independent music in the digital format.

2006 Awards

The 2006 Handle the Jandal Awards were held on September 20, at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington.

The winners of the Golden Jandal categories were:

Best use of exploitative tactics: Dean Hewison for Mathew Saville’s F**K you Orlando (Wellington)

Best editing: Filthy Joe Smoker for The Sorecock’s Lucyfer(Auckland)

Best Cinematography: Mark Summerville for Battle Circus’ Send in the Clones (Auckland)

Best Concept: Sally Tran for Charlie Ash’s O’baby (Wellington)

Best Animation: Toby Donald for Boss Christ’s El Bandido (Wellington)

Rising Star: Ed Lust for Arkitype’s Shut Eye (Christchurch)

The overall Golden Jandal for Favourite Video was:

First place: Sally Tran for Charlie Ash's "O'Baby"

Second Place: Marc Smith for The Video Kid's "DJ's Girlfriend"

Third Place: Mark Williams for Agent Alvin's "Who's Your Daddy?"

External links

* [http://www.radioactive.co.nz/ Radio Active 89FM]
* [http://www.jiggy.co.nz/ Jiggy.co.nz]