The three jury kill checks

Three yes-or-no questions from the jury room, asked before any ranking.

Pass 1 [proven] is a yes or no on each idea:

• it answers the proposition;

• the brand is the reason the story works;

• it stays inside every core element of the brief;

• it stays inside the red lines;

• it can be made at the motion standard with today's models (see Video with Seedance → Take selection and review): every shot stunning and dynamic next to the treatment, the anchors and the plan, with camera, acting, body, hair, hands, face, the product's texture and light moving together; each shot distinct in acting and camera, yet fitting the rest. A slow or static camera where the plan wants motion fails, whatever else holds;

• AI is inside it only in the two allowed ways (see The idea → AI inside the idea, two ways);

• it fits the length (see The idea → Fits the length).

Then the three kill checks [proven], yes or no:

1. Would anyone miss it if it never ran?

2. What type of ad is it, in five words, and is that type common in this category? A common type is one of your five obvious ideas and is cut, unless its twist makes the type unrecognisable.

3. Does it land from the film alone, by the film's end, with no super or case film to explain it? "By the end" keeps slow emotional ideas alive.

An idea that fails any of the three is cut or reworked.

Keep a free log: record each idea's three answers and its bar line. Later, note any idea you kept that the kill checks would have cut. If that keeps happening, the kill checks don't fit your taste, and you will see it.

Chaka Sobhani, 2026 Titanium jury president, put the first kill check as a question to her jury: "If this idea didn't exist, would we miss it?"

Sources

• Chaka Sobhani (shots, 2026 winners); Ali Ali (LBB); Tor Myhren, 2024 Film jury (LBB); Zia Mandviwalla, Dubai Lynx 2026 Film Craft jury (Campaign Middle East).