Pre-judging

Baru bangun tido... letih sangat. Merasalah katanya bangun at this hour kan? Tengah malam baru terjaga. Very the Betmeng gituh.

Actually semalam tak cukup tido, walaupoh hajat hati nak tido awal. Got up bright and early before 7am and was on the way to KL ke Legend Hotel tuk Anugerah Industri Muzik punya pre-judging.

Pre-judging simply means dari beratus ke berpuluh entry dalam satu kategori, we sift through each one, and mark it, and from there vote down to the choice of final ten which will undergo round two of voting to determine top five and the eventual winners.

For those of you who don't know, this is to allow more transparency in the process etc. Also tahun ni the results are going towards a more realistic manner of voting where postal ballots are not handled anymore. Online voting da mula - for Akademi members which makes up smaller part of the vote.

So pagi pagi buta ni, you get to see all the nocturnal creatures (da orang industri ni memang creatures of the night - kecuali yang stok keparat... oops korporat).. And TRUST me.... it's not a pretty sight to see all of us yang memang not morning people like zombies dragging our feet ngan semangat nan ado to do this.

Yes, we do it out of love katanya. Matilahhhhhh....

So anyway pagi tadik I think there were a hundred plus of us - select people from all disciplines of the industry. You're talking a dozen or so entertainment journalists, editors, producers, songwriters, lyricists, TV and radio people and assorted souls whom we question the existence of (matilah hidup kembali dan mati lagik carut)

So then we were split into categories to judge. No, we don't judge everything.

We don't have the strength. Berdarah dari mata dan telinga ok!

After all bab calon tu any Thong, Dev and Harith leh calonkan album. Just bayar the fee. And then it's up to us... cam melombong la kiranya. Nak sift the mud and impurities to find some precious metals. Ado?!!

Kira kita ni jadik Sirim la nak quality control.

Aku slalu kena judge kategori Indonesian songs (now best Malay song by non Malaysian artiste - specialty aku tuh), or new artiste or the English categories. All very me kan?

Tahun ni aku mintak break sikit - lari. Pening lak kena for Best Music Video dan Best Album Cover. Nangis! Lupa nak cakap Jen tanak these two either cause slalu get this too. Takpe la... selamat sikit telinga aku. Mata je berdarah lebih la.

So first category. Best Album Cover,

Nangis sebaldi sat. Tuh dia a total of 38 albums to be judged.

And the best part majority cliche gila. Now, Best Album Cover, or Kulit Album Terbaik, doesn't just mean gambar kat moka depan je tau... jangan silap. It's judged by photography, graphic, layout value and such.

And most ni cuma stok cliche yang repetitive je. Da leh cam da standard template wat album cover ni. Erm.. tanak carut lelebih la. Just some people think, stick a camera, get famous photographer and layout standard da cukup.

Aduh!!!!

Common mistakes, include make up (too much or none at all), bad lighting, Photoshop (too much or none at all - one female artiste had a unibrow.. I kid you not), cheap ass graphics (very the free font and icons download), bad photography (ada satu siap ngan pics out of focus), and of course following standard album cover templates.

By the time we were done, my eyes were burning dah. I think a handful je yang bebetol creative and original with quality from every aspect. And surprisingly most of yang leh dipuji came from albums of artistes yang tak begitu meletup nama or ala ala kadar je. Tuh la... nama nama besar suka take things for granted,

Then it was on to music videos. Nangis agik.

A total of 42 nominated. Two artistes had four, one had three and I think dua lagik have two. Yang biasa banyak ni biasanya nama pun yang tak vast. Jap... lap airmata darah yang meleleh ni sat.

The problems with our music videos is this. Kalao ada duit - usually nan ado creativity or originality. Kalao ada this unique approach - biasanya bajet ciput. Kesian...

For those of you yang nak tau... music videos lak judged based on concept, editing and continuity, art direction etc.

Things to remember not to do when you're doing a ballad for a video. Be cliched... I mean, fancy dresses, mood lighting and kipas angin. In fact, every video yang mamat atau minah dalam video tuh rambut panjang sikit je, wajib lak ada kipas angin kat depan. Heh... aiyo. Ada yang so Eighties and cliched Cerekarama fashioned punya storyline. I mean... I see better home made stuff on Youtube.

And fast paced videos - dance numbers cannot survive on choreography alone kalao video ko takde styling langsung nampak single camera production dalam studio kosong ok. Tuh pun camera angles malas nak mampos. Rock videos lak... aiyo... jangan la ingat ko dok studio kosong bersepah graphics added on later tuh da vogue. In fact a lot of videos resorted to this trick. Sad.

Ada artis lak standard la... tengok je syarikat rakaman leh tau what to expect da.

But there were a few yang besh gak. Idea baru... interesting.

One thing for sure is this year punya entries, generally, even feedback dari bilik judging for kategori lain pun - is that this year there's quantity over quality.

Still, hopefully with the business slowly gaining strength again and growing - quality will come in the face of more competition. Tu doa aku tuk industri muzik kita ni. Amin.

All in all - it took us almost five hours. For those yang lesser fortunate kena layan kategori lain - masih berdarah berjuang nak abihkan tugas meka masa aku blah.

Mana taknya... kalao kategori Lagu Terbaik ada penyanyi tertentu satu album calonkan (walaopon majoriti fillers no killer) camna? Tuh baru satu penyanyi. Nangis la syarikat rakaman skang ada yang berangan. Tuh lum agik berapa ramai artis ngan album remix dan version lain bagai yang last year or previous year da masuk - tapi rerelease ubah sikit je masuk balik ngan produk sama yang nan ado. Aiyo... if it didn't work the first time. Sedarlah...

Still it was fun to catch up and bitch with all my industry friends. Makes it worth the pain la... almost. A yearly ritual yang very the painful but fun. Sadis kan aku ni...

It was raining cats and dogs (or pussies and bitches in my terminology) and I headed home nak tido. Balik terus ala beruang masuk musim, hibernasi, hawau!

Owh by the way.. wonder what's the deal with this car which was in front of me at one point. Takde number plate.



Majorly scary! Hitman sangat. Tinted bagai lagik. You can be sure I didn't pull my road bully act on this car.

Yawn... ok la. I think I actually have it in me nak sambung tidur. Tomorrow ada beberapa event. Tatau semangat ke tak nak gi je. Teringin nak take a few days to relax.

It's starting soon.

Nuff said. Nite people....


PS - Thanks to J. Tho, general manager of Persatuan Akademi Industri Muzik Malaysia and her crew (Ayie... Atie... semua lah) for your hospitality.

PPS - This is the third or fourth night in a row I've had those weird dreams. Is it starting again? Perlu ke limau nipis dan bunga tujuh tangkai berserta kelapa muda dan air mineral lagik. Takpe... kali ini aku da bersedia.