Introducing the ATOM Awards

The ATOM Awards was established in 1982 by the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) - an independent, non-profit association promoting media education and screen literacy in primary, secondary and tertiary education and the broader community.  

Each year the ATOM Awards recognise excellence in over thirty categories of Film, Television, Animation and Multimedia and celebrate the very best of Australian and New Zealand production.

The fact that this is the 29^th year of the ATOM Awards is strong testimony to the program’s longstanding history and tradition of awarding excellence in screen and media culture. Further, it reflects the significant place that this program has for producers seeking acknowledgement of their achievements and the promotion of their work. 

The ATOM Awards program is designed to acknowledge the work that our current and future talent is contributing to the big screen, across a wide range of media.   

As such, the ATOM Awards program aims to ‘capture’ and highlight the development of all facets of media produced for ‘screen’, be it the movie, television, PC, games console or even mobile phone screen. 

The ATOM Awards can provide access to young opinion and peer leaders to organisations who are seeking to raise awareness about important issues.

Screen media - computer, television and film, is the dominant cultural form that young people are engaged in and discover the world through.  

The focus of the ATOM Awards is on media forms that young people continue to use. Students who have made work to submit to the ATOM Awards have had to be creative, energetic, good at organising and full of ideas. They tend to be active members of their peer networks.

By working with the ATOM Awards to raise an issue, an organisation is able to gain the participation of this group of young people in a high profile public forum. 

This major Victorian held screen culture event annually attracts a large number of students, production companies, independent filmmakers, educational bodies and educational producers all of whom are keen to submit their best work and have it judged alongside their peers. 

The combination of student and professional awards not only allows the ATOM Awards to provide all-important early career exposure and experience for emerging professionals, but also provides promotional opportunities for winners and finalists. 

Using the ATOM Awards, ATOM publications and ATOM Professional Development Victoria, ATOM is actively engaged in the promotion of Australian product into the education and industry market. As such, the ATOM Awards are unique in their incorporation of the educational market with the broader industry.

So, what makes the ATOM Awards unique?

The ATOM Awards program is unique for the focus that is has on celebrating and rewarding excellence in screen production in the education market.  It is also the only major Australian screen event, which is managed by the market sector of its focus, which means that it is more connected and relevant to its audience. 

Festivals such as St Kilda, Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), as well as any other Capital City International Festivals, have narrower and limited competitions that also include international work. 

Festivals such as Portable Film Festival (covering short film and student film) and the AIDC Awards (for Australian documentaries) market to the audience who produced them. 

The ATOM Awards provides screen industry professionals with the opportunity to run for a national award that will enable their production to stand out within an educational context.   

Educators are presented with such a variety of educational products that the choice can become overwhelming. Confidence is found in selecting a product that has won an ATOM Award as such credit ensures adherence to certain criteria and an educational context.   

Outside the educational context, the ATOM Awards are highly regarded within the screen and media industry and provide an added edge to assist productions in standing out in this highly competitive environment. 

The ATOM Award categories on offer also draw in minority groups and open up the opportunity for regional submissions. 

Another unique aspect of the ATOM Awards is that screen producers of all ages are awarded on the same evening, ensuring cross strata viewing of outstanding productions during the awards ceremony. There is also the opportunity for informal networking during the celebratory cocktail after-party. 

In the past, many profitable networks have been facilitated in this way.

Screen producers, impressed by what they have seen during the ceremony, have often sought out students to congratulate them and some have offered students work experience and other unique career extending opportunities.

Likewise, students eager to glean valuable wisdom from professionals in the industry are able to seek out producers and industry professionals and talk with them in an informal and non-threatening environment.

Celebrating Education and Media 

As a public event which classifies work into categories, then judges and rewards work across a growing spectrum of forms and delivery platforms, the ATOM Awards - in conjunction with ATOM publications - represents the critical dialogue on screen industry and education.

The program highlights and recognises quality and relevance and provides a focus for this vital area of ensuring viable and sustainable educational production. 

The ATOM brand is known and recognised throughout Australia. ATOM publications publish details of the winners and finalists who are in turn able to use this recognition and the ATOM Awards brand (and logo) to differentiate their work in marketing.

The ATOM Awards program also provides screen industry practitioners with access to the education sector and a public event where the industry is able to meet with educators.

Winners are invited to join the Metro Magazine Speakers’ Bureau where they are highlighted in order that educators can invite them to appear as guest speakers in various education settings, thereby further promoting the use of their screen productions. 

The ATOM Awards program also provides an alternative channel in which local work is screened and offers a major network through which local work can be propagated. 

Excerpts of productions are screened at the ATOM Awards Gala Presentation and complete productions are shown at various free public screening events.

Recognising and Rewarding Innovation

The ATOM Awards recognises and rewards innovation in screen industries through its judging criteria and the expertise of its judges. 

The ATOM Award categories are reviewed and refined each year to reflect changes in screen production and in how media is used in education.  The ATOM Awards event itself is evolving and changing. 

In recent years, the categories have expanded to reflect the growth of platforms and place of media in education.   

The ATOM Awards program supports innovation in the converging areas of film and television and interactive multimedia.

In fact, the ATOM Awards was the first program to recognise the converging area of screen entertainment, where film, television, interactive multimedia are increasingly sharing technology, techniques, platforms and personnel. This is possibly due to the fact that this convergence became evident in the education segment of the market before it was apparent in mainstream distribution. 

By including digital media categories within an existing film and television awards framework, the ATOM Awards program expresses the clear intention to foster, develop, value and recognise this merging technological trend, thereby increasing acceptance and use of interactive digital media technologies.