Jury Chair
Semera Khan, Creative Director, Polydor Records
Semera is an award-winning Commissioner and Creative Director at Polydor Records. She has commissioned Music Videos for some of the world’s biggest artists; from the likes of the Rolling Stones, the 1975 to Lana Del Rey and Madonna.
She began her journey in the music industry working at Oil Factory Ltd-one of the biggest production companies in London at the time and from here, she began to refine her interest in the visual side of music and went on to work as a Video Commissioner at EMI Records and Sony Music, before joining Polydor Records as Head of Music Videos in 2012.
In 2019, she won the Best Commissioner award for the second time at UK Music Video Awards, and was inducted into the Music Week Women in Music Roll Of Honour in recognition of her outstanding work in the music industry.
Semera: "Music Video is a vital tool for the music industry as it sets a visual tone for the artists music as well as the overall long-term campaign. It’s a strong way of communicating a story, representing the music, showcasing the artists taste and connecting them to their audience and beyond.
It also has the amazing potential to create debate and be culture shifting too.
Now and again a video can come along and create positive (or negative) conversations anything from sexuality, race, fashion, art, gender politics, pop culture, sub culture and so on.It’s very important to award great music videos, and it's important for everyone’s work to be seen. It creates excitement in the industry, helps grow the network of creators and sets goals for the new creatives that are coming through. So much ‘blood, sweat and tears’ goes into making music videos, it’s encouraging to be recognised and celebrated amongst peers. As Jury President of the Sharks Music Video Awards, I will encourage each jury member to look at ALL aspects of the video, it’s not just about the story telling, the cinematography, edit, art direction, styling, casting - although obviously all key - but also about the music and artist; is it elevating the song?; is it creating a world for the artist; is it making you feel something for the music…?
Judges
Awards Party
Great fun was had by all at our awards presentation held at the Hotel Du Vin in Brighton. Congratulations to our winners.