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Judging the Jury
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Members of the international jury were put on the hot seat
yesterday to defend their winning choices in the children's
and animation categories, which were resolutely panned the
festival's specially commissioned student jury during the
session International Jury of Peers.
In both categories, the adult jury's winning choices were
far down the list of student's favorites.
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Josh Kjorven, Canmore |
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"What were you thinking?" asked U.S. student Chartchai
Buapeth, questioning the jury's choice of Yoho Ahoy: Buzz
With Jones as the animation winner. The student jury,
made up of high school students from Canada, England, France,
Germany and the U.S., picked Aunt Tiger, a UK-Taiwan
co-production, as the animation winner. Yoho Ahoy placed
dead last among the students. Most felt the U.K. production
for the BBC - in which the Teletubby-like characters utter
only two words, "yoho" and "ahoy" - talked
down to pre-schoolers.
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Chartchai Buapetch, USA |
The students found support from adult audience member Vicki Grant,
a children's producer and mother of three from Canada, who called
Yoho Ahoy infantile. "As parents we're told not to talk
baby-talk to our children, so why do we give them shows that do?
I think we should 'aim up' for them. As a mother I would find it
very annoying to have my kids saying 'yoho, ahoy' all the time,"
Grant said.
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The students also disagreed with the jury's choice of My Parents
Are Aliens: The Family Way, as the winner in the children's
category. The show, from Granada Television, was "screechy
and annoying," said student Catherine Whitaker of France, who
also called the story "stupid." Students picked Kiss
Me Frog, from Germany, as the children's category winner. My
Parents Are Aliens was far down the students' list.
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Rachelle Riedinger, Banff |
International jurist Philip Jones, of the U.K., said the jury found
Yoho Ahoy "charming" with a slightly moral message
for pre-schoolers. The jury was also impressed with the quality
of Yoho's puppetry and animation, said jurist Khim Loh, of Singapore,
while Tania Chambers, of Australia, praised the show as a fine contribution
to the pre-school market, where TV shows are often used as babysitters.
Like Yoho Ahoy, the student jury felt My Parents Are
Aliens was "dummied down" for children. Jones disagreed.
"We found it very cleverly written and in our opinion we certainly
didn't think it talked down to children."
The International Jury of Peers is the only session at the festival
where the jury's selections are analyzed and debated by an outside
committee. Jones welcomed the critique. "That's what juries
are all about and that's what democracy is all about. I think this
has been a very healthy debate," he said.
Audience members and panelists also debated the difficulties of
categorizing some entries as children's programming. Animated programs
were historically entered as children's programs until given their
own category several years ago. Although still aimed mostly at the
youth market, one animation entry this year stirred controversy.
Le chapeau, from Canada's National Film Board, was deemed
inappropriate for student viewing by administrators in one German
and one Canadian high school. The program used animation to deal
with child abuse.
The International Jury of Peers, sponsored by the Shaw Children's
Programming Initiative, is in its fifth year. It was established
to give voice to the people who actually watch the programs in what
is a very important category for the festival and the industry,
says Banff Television Foundation vice-president Jerry Ezekiel, who
moderated the session. He said student and international juries
have almost always disagreed on winners and sessions have generated
lively debates. The student jury was also established as a sounding
board at the Selection Committee level to determine both quality
and category determination for some programs.
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