Young Arrows launches first special award for 2024

The Young Arrows awards, which spotlight and celebrate emerging talent in the UK moving image advertising industry, have announced its first special award.

The Bolt Award – presented in honour of well-known advertising production figure, Barney Richard – will be given to an individual who is introducing new ideas, techniques, or approaches within a piece of moving image advertising content.

The Bolt award-winner will challenge, or transform existing moving image genres, while aiming to influence cultural trends through their discussion-provoking work and unexpected ideas. The winner will be selected from work entered into the Creative Team, New Director and Student Commercial of the Year categories.

All Young Arrows awards are completely free-to-enter this year, to remove the financial barrier that often blocks emerging talent from entering.

The Bolt Award will be judged by the chairs and Board rather than the full jury, and the panel will be looking for work that ideally leads to significant shifts in the way people think about, and engage, with creative content.

The Young Arrows aim to foster greater accessibility and build the diverse and inclusive talent pool that’s vitally needed for our industry to flourish. Bolt is the first special award to be introduced to the show, which was launched in 2022 by the not-for-profit British Arrows.

Simon Cooper, Chairman of the British Arrows said, “The Young Arrows’ mission is to spotlight and celebrate emerging talent in the UK moving image advertising industry and we’re delighted to announce the first Bolt Award for 2024. We’re looking for innovative thinking and boundary-pushing work within a piece of branded content, and we’re encouraging emerging talent from across the UK to enter the awards, it’s free afterall.”

Presented in honour of Barney Richard, a well-known and popular figure in the UK advertising production community who passed away last year, The Bolt Award recognises his lightning bolt, unexpected ideas. Barney was founder, executive producer and self-described “nuisance” at production company all of Us here, which he launched with producer Isabella Parish in early 2023.

Lisa Lavender, Managing Director, British Arrows, said, “Barney Richard was a unique talent and he would have loved to have played an integral role in the future of the Young Arrows, so we want to recognise and remember him. This special award felt like the right way to do that.”

Isabella Parrish, co-founder at all of Us here commented, “Barney was the co-founder at all of Us here but mostly he was a friend. His outrageous humour was unequivocally reflected in his musical, film and artistic choices. He poked fun at the world and anything contrived or overly formal while at the same time being immeasurably kind and supportive. We wanted to remember him for this, in a way we think he would approve of, a bolt of lightning representing the delightful troublemaker he was!”

The Young Arrows have also announced the neverland Internship which will be awarded to the winner of Student Commercial of the Year category. This six-week paid internship – paid at £26k pa (above London living wage) – will present the winner with the chance to work on live projects for neverland’s clients within its creative and production teams, based in the Shoreditch office.

 Amy Coomber, Head of Production at neverland said: “Bringing a new generation of talent into our industry is a key focus for neverland. We can’t wait to welcome the Student Film winner into our team and help give their career a flying start.”

The Young Arrows is open to all those with less than three years’ experience in their current role, and work can be submitted across 18 distinct categories. Entries close on 4th September. The winning work will be showcased this October at the inspiring awards show hosted by Reggie Yates at HERE at Outernet in central London.