If the First Boards Awards reveals one truth, it's that there's no shortage of new talent from all over the world coming up the ranks. And it's heartening to note that said talent isn't being relegated to small quirky projects, though rest assured work for MTV is well represented in this year's crop. Instead they're getting cracks at top clients, and being encouraged to really show their talents off.

That said, one interesting development this year came from our Creative Teams category. While we endeavor to uncover the most promising new industry minds, this year's field found us borrowing a page from the notoriously picky London award show D&AD: we opted not to declare a winner. Why, you might ask? We took the fact that no entry received an average score of over 15 out of 30 from our panel of creative directors as testimony that today's climate demands higher standards. We perceive this to be a challenge to emerging creatives and their creative directors, who should help shepherd these young minds to up their game and give them the room to take more chances.

Below are the top finalists in each category, and profiles of the top three winners (top five for directors) from each can be found on the following pages. A huge thanks goes out to our illustrious panel of judges who bore the brunt of the grunt work (see pg. 4 for the complete list).

Directors

• 1.Jeff Labbé > @radical.media
• 2.Andreas Hasle > Atomik Pictures
• 3.Agustin Alberdi > Carbo Films/Landia
• 4.RBG6 > Nexus Productions


• 5.Michael Long > freelance director
• 6.Paul Santana > Order/Sparks
• 7.Jake Schreier > Plum Productions
• 8.Alex Rutterford > RSA
• 9.Mark Molloy > Furlined*
• 9.Leslie Ali > Partizan*
• 9.Laurent Bourdoiseau > Independent*
• 10.Pleix > Blink Productions

Editors

• 1.Brad Waskewich > Rock Paper Scissors
• 2.Crandall Miller > The Whitehouse
• 3.Matt Murphy > Rock Paper Scissors
• 4.Charles Lee > Rock Paper Scissors
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• 5.Leo Scott > Speade

Animators

• 1.Nicklas Andersson > Framestore CFC
• 2.Joshua Merck > The Mill NY
• 3.Vincent Baertsoen > The Mill London*
• 3.Seth Gollub > Framestore NY*
• 4.Dean Robinson > Framestore CFC

* Tie for 3rd

Composers

• 1.Greg Griffith > Stimmüng
• 2.Mark Chu > Yessian
• 3.Benjamin Pacheco > Human
• 4.John Connolly > independent composer
• 5.Chuck Bein > Comma Music

Motion Graphics/Designers

• 1.Tim Kentley > XYZ Studios
• 2.Guy Atzmon > Rhinofx
• 3.John Earle, Josh Horowitz, Ben Yonda > Nickelodeon Brand Image Group
• 4.Chino Wong > independent designer
• 5.Anders Schroder > Transistor Studios