Asia Pac film judges meet via teleconferencing

To help decide on nominees for this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), judges from across the region used teleconferencing technology to undertake their deliberations, without leaving their respective countries.

The APSA Nominations Council met in late September to determine nominees in the fifth annual APSAs.

The deliberations of council members from the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Australia, Hawaii, Japan and Taiwan took place using Cisco TelePresence, which includes high-definition video, spatial audio, specially designed meeting rooms and interactive elements.

This enabled council members to communicate more effectively. Council members in five locations were brought together to deliberate on films and determine the nominees, without the need to leave their home cities.

“[The solution] enabled APSA to significantly reduce its carbon footprint and, in increasingly busy times, it also ensures we have the very best calibre of cinema experts on our Nominations Council by reducing the often onerous requirement for international travel,” said APSA Artistic Director Maxine Williamson.

Professor Hong-Joon Kim, filmmaker and chair of the council, praised the teleconferencing experience.

Speaking from Seoul, he said at first the meeting: “Felt a little awkward, but after just a one-day session, council members felt very comfortable speaking to each other in this way. It was more formal in a way than face-to-face meetings, which is a good thing. You try to be concise and straightforward, and so the technology and the format influence the content of the discourse. It’s a very effective means of communication.”

Jeanette Hereniko, a council member representing Hawaii, participated in the council’s deliberations from Singapore.

“What happens is that you become much more efficient in the deliberations. I found that I was more business-like, more concise, more articulate and to the point. Whereas I think if we were in a group, there’d be a lot more chitchat. From an efficiency point of view, this technology saves a lot of time and energy,” Hereniko said.