Avnil Media

Out of more than 5000 submissions from 25 countries, Anvil Media has been named a Bronze winner in the 2013 Summit Creative Award competition for its creative work for Ancestry.com.au.

“We won in the category of Corporate Image/Public Relations for a promotional video we produced featuring Ancestry.com.au member Jenny Cowen,” said Michael Neil-Smith, producer, director and writer of the winning video. “We’re thrilled to win this award as it recognises Anvil Media’s talents on what is effectively the world stage.”

The panel of judges included representatives from creative agencies from the US, Canada, Sweden, Kuwait and Australia. Entries were judged against a stringent set of standards that sought to identify innovative and creative concepts, strong executions and the ability to communicate and persuade.

“Winning a Summit Creative Award is a significant accomplishment. With vetted judges, tough judging criteria, blind judging processes, and strict bylaws limiting winners, only deserving entries receive recognition,” said Jocelyn Luciano, Executive Director for the Summit International Awards (SIA). “The creative work this year was outstanding. Watching the judges debate the details of individual entries in the run-off for the tops spots was inspiring.”

Anvil Media’s winning video featured the story of Jenny Cowen’s search for details of a long forgotten member of her family who had lived early last century.

“Jenny had a number of fascinating stories about different relatives she had researched using Ancestry.com.au,” he said. “One of our tasks was to work out which of these stories would work best for a short video, and then to select and edit the most compelling parts of the story.”

The video was shot at the Palace Theatre in Melbourne, Victoria, a place of great significance to Jenny’s relative.

“One of the things that made this video so watchable was having a real member of Ancestry.com.au telling her story firsthand,” said Michael. “It was easy to see the joy Jenny got from discovering details of her relative’s life. Everyone who looks into their family history hopes to discover something unique and Jenny’s relative’s story included scandal, mystery and a dash of Hollywood. It is also made more interesting by the fact that part of the story remains unresolved.”

Anvil Media developed the creative concept, wrote the script, sourced the location and filmed the video. Apart from Michael’s role as producer, director and writer, Peter Reidy was director of photography and Bryce McLellan developed the graphics and edited the video.

Watch Anvil Media’s award-winning video: