First Annual Saxxy Awards

“

Steven Spielberg. Robert Scorcese. Socrates. The guy who made those Old Spice commercials. What do these names have in common? They are the four best filmmakers in the world. And they all got there the same way: by competing in a filmmaking competition we're just now announcing.

— TF2 Official Blog

”

The First Annual Saxxy Awards is a contest held amongst the community to create a replay in order to earn "the most prestigious virtual award in combat filmmaking: a foot-high bust of an almost entirely naked Australian man." The competition was announced alongside the Replay Update.

Promotional video

The Rules

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Please keep entries to under a minute, and at a resolution of at least 720p. Only entries created between 12:00:00 AM GMT, Thursday, May 5th, 2011 and 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday, May 19th, 2011, and submitted by 11:59:59 PM GMT, Thursday, May 19th, 2011^[3], will be considered.

Only one entry per category per Steam user will be considered. If you submit multiple entries in a single category, the last entry submitted by the deadline will be considered, and the others will be ignored. Entries by multiple authors are allowed.

No entries containing copyrighted materials (outside of Valve's IPs) will be considered. Materials (.DEM files, for example) may be requested to prove original authorship.

The use of external software in the creation of entries is permitted in all categories. However, the Replay renderer MUST be used for initial TGA/WAV data if an external editor is used, OR if rendering an entry from within TF2. Video Preset "Maximum" MUST be used, regardless of whether you are rendering a movie from TF2 or raw TGAs and a .WAV.

— Saxxy Awards page

”

Voting

At 11:59:59 PM GMT, Friday, May 20th, 2011, the Saxxy Awards submission period ended, and Francis the Talking France opened the official voting for the best videos.

At the Battle voting page, the user was given two videos of the selected category, and could vote for their preferred one. The given videos were randomly chosen, and new ones were selected after each vote. Voting was only available to steam accounts that own Team Fortress 2, and a given user could only vote a maximum of one hundred times per day. The Battle voting round of the Saxxy Awards voting process officially ended at 4:30 PM PST, Thursday, May 26th, 2011.

The Finales voting stage began at 3:10 PM PST, Thursday, June 2nd, 2011. Unlike at other awards shows, where the winners are necromanced by magicians, the Saxxy Award winners in all twenty categories were selected by Steam community members, through the nominees page. Each player was allowed one vote per category. Players were able to change their vote until the voting period ended.

As of 11:00 AM PST, Monday, June 6th, 2011, voting has concluded.

The Awards Show

At 5:35 PM PST, Monday, June 6th, 2011, the Awards Show was announced on the official blog. The First Annual Saxxy Awards Show LIVE will air at 3:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, June 8th, where a category winner will be revealed every five minutes. The Award Show will last one hundred minutes, as specifically stated during the post. However, there are 19 categories, with each Saxxy being awarded in five-minute intervals. This leaves five left over minutes. What Valve plans to fill this time with is unknown.