The DGA Awards celebrates outstanding directorial achievement and we welcome your entry. Here are the Awards guidelines and entry form for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials. You must agree to these rules at the bottom of the page in order to go to the Entry Form.

Entry Criteria:

1. Director Eligibility:
   
   
   • Entries must be directed by a DGA member under a DGA Agreement. A Director or Co Directors may enter one or more commercials as part of one entry in this category, provided all commercials have been directed by the same Director or Co-Director team.
   
   
   • Entries are accepted only from the Director(s) of the program. An entry found to be submitted by the production company without the Director’s knowledge will be immediately disqualified.


2. Commercials Eligibility:
   
   
   • Only commercials that have originally aired on television or streaming services during the period of January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 are eligible.
   
   
   • Foreign commercials and commercials produced for streaming platforms and other forms of New Media are eligible, provided they are made under a DGA Agreement.
   
   
   • The submission may be one commercial or multiple commercials, as long as the additional commercials are not versions or lifts of the first commercial submitted.
   
   
   • Commercials may not be re-edited for jury consideration and "director's cuts" are not eligible if they were not the version that was first distributed.


3. Length:
   
   
   • The total length of the entry submission must not exceed three minutes of principal photography.
   
   
   • The submission may include multiple Commercial spots, so long as the total runtime is less than three minutes. Examples include:

   One 3-minute spot	Three 60-second spots
   Two 90-second spots	Or any other division



4. Credit:
   
   
   • The Director or Co-Directors must have exercised all traditional directorial functions in connection with original photography.


5. Entry Requirements:


• The Director or Co-Directors must submit a completed DGA Awards entry form. A confirmation e-mail will be sent upon receipt of the entry form.


• All entries produced under the DGA National Commercial Agreement must be accompanied by each Commercial’s corresponding DGA Commercial Project Listing Form (CPLF) or applicable deal memorandum if produced under another DGA agreement.


6. Entry Link:
   
   
   • The Director must provide a HD link of the Commercial submission(s) to be forwarded to the members of the DGA Awards Commercials Screening Committee. HD links that do not meet the following criteria will not be accepted.
     
     All submission links must:
   • Meet the following specifications: QuickTime Movie in Apple ProRes, 1920 x 1080.
   
   
   • The submission may be one commercial or multiple commercials, as long as the additional commercials are not versions or lifts of the first commercial submitted.
   
   
   • Not be re-edited for jury consideration. "Director's cuts" are not eligible if they were not the version that was first distributed.
   
   
   • Go directly to the Commercials. The link should not allow viewers to access any other or contain any additional information about the project.
   
   
   • A watermark may be included provided it does not obscure the entry.

Entry Deadline:

• All entries must be received in the Awards office by 5:00 p.m. PT on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2024. No entries will be accepted after the deadline

Judging Process:

• Commercials entries will be viewed by a Nomination Panel that votes by secret ballot. The five entries that receive the highest number of votes will be announced as the 2024 DGA Commercials Nominees on Tuesday, January 7, 2025.


• These five will then be viewed by a Blue Ribbon Panel that will, by secret ballot, select the winner of the 2024 DGA Commercials Award. The winner will be announced at the 77th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, February 8, 2025.

Should you have any questions, please contact Brandon Kyle Goco in the DGA Awards Office at Awards@dga.org or (310) 289-2038.