 Last Saturday Nic and I happened upon a pretty grim and slimy Camden evening. Its a place I've avoided like a bad memory for some years now. I drive through it more aggressively and with far more urgency than anywhere else in London, I smell cowboy chic and hot dogs and in essence, the epicentre of the collapse of civilisation. Forgive me, the BT GetOutThere award ceremony was being held at The Roundhouse near Chalk Farm, a splendid building that was once…well I don't know what it was, perhaps a corn silo or an old theatre but its splendid. You all know about the BT thingy, I've been talking about it for some time now and we've had the privilege of interviewing some interesting people through them that have acted as the judges for the various competitions.
I'll attempt to sum up as the evening as best as I can for you. There were around 800 very beautiful and stylish people there who had their giddy way with a free bar and made general merriment at a large corporation's expense. Nice. The show was hosted by the quite inimitable and damn cool Richard Blackwood and the darling of teenage (and 20 something I guess) hearts, the lovely Kate Thornton. Gail Porter came on to present some awards too but I couldn't understand why they weren't all together in the first place. Lots of razzmatazz and cheering and hooting and flashing lights with that smoke stuff, everyone had a blinding time in their glad rags and scents. Nic and I took lots of photos and indulged to the point where we realised how much the previous week had taken from us, we did some interviews, met some lovely people and went home to get drunk. I'd be rather hopeless at listing those who won awards and why but my guess is that they all deserved their successes, nice people deserve prizes. So I've decided to allow the charming young lady who dealt with the PR for the event, list the winners. I hope you don't mind. Peter Horsham, a 21 year old student from Devon whose track '02' with Kraymon won best techno drum and bass track, also went on to win Best Unsigned Artist in Music.
Peter said: "I was completely blown away by my award and thought the getoutthere Live party was great. BT have given me a real chance to get a break, I've got one of my tracks appearing on the getoutthere.bt.com CD as well, which is on the front cover of Mixmag. I've had interest in my music before but nothing has been pressed into vinyl yet so I'm hoping this is really going to get me noticed."
Simon Burrill, a 22 year old film and animation student from Tooting in London, was chosen as Best Unsigned Artist in Film with his piece of animation - 'A Few Thoughts on Smoking.'
Simon said: " It was amazing to get up on stage and get presented with an award at the party. Some of the other finalists were fantastic so I didn't think I was in with a chance. I've spent three years attempting to get into film so maybe this time I'll get my break with BT's getoutthere website."
Both winners have won the ultimate kick-start for their careers which includes a tailored marketing and promotional campaign.
JUDGES
Bedroom DJs, budding filmmakers, wannabee directors, producers and burgeoning rock bands have all been uploading their material onto the getoutthere.bt.com website. All the tracks and films have been reviewed and voted for by the general public and an independent panel short-listed the most promising tracks and films.
The music judging panel included the legendary DJ Marshall Jefferson and a panel from Mixmag, Select and Mojo magazines. While director Sam Miler, Animator Giles Pilbrow and music video producer Jeremy Bannister helped choose the best film. For more information, check the GetOutThere site. |
