Season One · 2026
The Sound & Screen
AI Music Video Awards
No studio. No budget. No permission. Just people who saw something in their head and built it anyway. Nobody has been giving this work its due, so we are.
- Season opens
- Sept 9
- Last show
- Oct 7
- Nominees
- Oct 14
- Winners
- Oct 21
Every Wednesday · 7PM ET · live on TikTok @samoricoles
Why this exists
The work got good before anyone was watching.
Every Wednesday night, Sound & Screen reviews AI music videos submitted by the people who made them. In a few months the standard has moved from novelty to something else entirely. Videos with real story arcs. Characters who hold together across three minutes. Cinematography that would pass on a network.
There is no awards show for any of it. Every existing music video award was built for productions with crews, budgets and permission, and none of them have a category that makes sense for what these creators are actually doing.
So this is the first one.
Five awards
The categories
Five, deliberately. Enough to honor real range, few enough that winning one still means something.
- 01
The headline
Best AI Music Video
Judged on all six criteria. The one video that did everything well and did it with a point of view.
- 02
The idea
Best Storytelling
A crafted narrative with a beginning and an end, not a run of beautiful shots in a row.
- 03
The look
Best Visual Style
Art direction and aesthetic command. Photoreal, Pixar-adjacent, art deco, hand-drawn, graphic. Judged against what it is trying to be.
- 04
The craft
Best Technical Achievement
Character consistency, clean execution, lip sync when it is used. The category that could not exist at any other awards show.
- 05
The crowd
Viewers' Choice
Decided entirely by public vote from October 14 to 20. No judges. This one belongs to the audience.
How it is decided
Judged on craft, not on followers.
A panel of three judges scores every nominee against six criteria. The panel carries 70% of the result and the public vote carries 30%, which means the crowd can swing a close race but cannot hand anyone a win on audience size alone. Viewers’ Choice is the exception: that one is 100% yours.
Story
Is there a crafted idea, or just a run of nice shots?
Vision
Creativity and originality. Did they go past the obvious version of this song?
Cinematography
Framing, lighting, camera movement, editing. Industry standard within its own style.
Character & World Consistency
Same face, same wardrobe, same world, first frame to last.
Technical Execution
Clean shots. No artifacts, no morphing, no transitions that fall apart.
Song Service
Does the video make the track hit harder than it does on its own?
Lip sync is a deduction, not a category. You never have to use it, and plenty of the best work does not. Use it well and it costs you nothing. Use it badly and it costs you up to five points.
The season
Five Wednesdays to get on the screen.
The season is every show between September 9 and October 7, not a handful of special dates. Miss one, come back the next week. Every date below is a Sound & Screen night, 7PM ET, live on TikTok. Nothing happens off camera.
- Show 1 Sept 9
- Show 2 Sept 16
- Show 3 Sept 23
- Show 4 Sept 30
- Show 5 Oct 7
Then the two that decide it:
- Wednesday Oct 7
Last show of the season
The final chance to get your video on the screen. Nothing played after this makes Season One.
- Wednesday Oct 14
Nominees announced
Live on the show. Public voting opens the same night and runs seven days.
- Wednesday Oct 21
Winners crowned
Live on Sound & Screen. Five awards, one season, first time anyone has done this.
How a video gets in
There is nothing to fill in.
No submission form, no separate awards entry, no application. You get into Season One by getting your video played on the show. Every video reviewed on air between September 9 and October 7 is in consideration.
- 01
Be in the room
Every Wednesday, 7PM ET, live on TikTok. The nero.fan link drops at the top of the show, and it only exists while the show is on.
- 02
Submit through nero.fan
Have your link ready. YouTube, Vimeo, any cloud service. Public or unlisted, never private. No DMs, no gatekeepers, no favours.
- 03
Get played on the show
The queue is first come, first served. Skips move you up it and super-skips push you to the front, both through nero.fan. Anything that airs between Sept 9 and Oct 7 is in consideration, including a video that played on an earlier show.
What qualifies
The rules, all of them.
Short list on purpose. If it is yours and it got played, it counts.
- The video must be your own work.
- AI must be a meaningful part of how it was made. How much is up to you.
- Any song, any genre, any length. Yours or licensed.
- Any style. Photoreal, animated, graphic, abstract, mixed.
- Released or unreleased, as long as it is finished.
- It has to play on the show between Sept 9 and Oct 7. What counts is when it airs, not how old the video is.
- Already played on the show before? Bring it back. Replays count.
What winning gets you
Nominees are named live on the show on October 14. Winners are crowned on the 21st, with the winning work played on air and the creator credited by name. Best AI Music Video takes home the trophy.
Season One is about being first. Whoever wins this will still be putting it in their bio in three years.
Partnership
Put your brand on the first one.
There is exactly one chance to be the brand that backed the first awards for AI music video, and it does not come around again.
The audience is the buyer
Sound & Screen is watched by the people who actually make AI music videos, every week, by name. They are choosing their video model, their music generator and their editor right now, and most of them are choosing on what they see work on this show.
It is a category of one
Sound & Screen is the only live AI music video review show on social. These are the only awards for the form. A sponsor is not buying placement in a crowded field, they are buying the field.
A season, not a single night
This runs live every Wednesday through the October 21 ceremony: qualifying shows week after week, the nominee announcement, then a week of public voting where every nominee is pushing it to their own audience. A partner is present across that run rather than attached to one broadcast.
There is only one Season One
Backing the first season of anything is a claim nobody can buy afterwards. Every season that follows will reference this one, and the brand that was there at the start is part of that story permanently.
What is available
Presenting sponsorship of Season One, individual category sponsorship, the trophy, and the prize pool. The full breakdown, the audience numbers and the dates go out the same day you ask.
Before you ask
Questions
How do I enter my video?
You do not fill anything in. You get your video played on Sound & Screen between September 9 and October 7. Every video that plays on air in that window is in consideration for Season One, whether it is brand new or a replay of something that aired months ago.
What does it cost?
Getting in the queue through nero.fan costs nothing and you wait your turn. If you do not want to wait, skips move you up the queue and super-skips push you to the front. That is the only place money comes into it.
My video already played on the show before September 9. Does it count?
Not on its own, but it can. What counts is the date a video plays on air, not the date it was made or the fact it aired before. Send it back through nero.fan on any Wednesday between September 9 and October 7 and it is in consideration. Replays are welcome and plenty of them will happen.
Do I have to be an AI Creator Society member?
No. The awards are open to anyone who gets played. Members get preference in the review queue, but the awards themselves are wide open.
Does lip sync have to be in it?
No, and skipping it is often the smarter call with AI. Lip sync is never scored as its own category. It only costs you if you use it and it does not hold up.
My video is animated, not photoreal. Am I at a disadvantage?
No. Every judge scores a video against what it is trying to be, not against photorealism. Art deco is judged as art deco. That rule is at the top of the scoring sheet.
Can I enter a video I made months ago?
Yes. How old the video is does not matter at all. The only thing that matters is that it plays on the show between September 9 and October 7.
Who are the judges?
A panel of three, announced before nominees. The panel decides 70% of every award except Viewers’ Choice, which is entirely yours.
Season One closes October 7.
Five more Wednesdays to get your video on the screen. Somebody is going to be the first winner of the first awards for AI music video, and it may as well be you.