Ft. Meade, Maryland –
Visual information and public affairs personnel are preparing entries for their military service’s media contest with the aim of earning a top spot for their service and entry to the Defense Media Awards competition in April.
The Defense Media Awards replaces the Thomas Jefferson, Visual Information and Visual Information Production – the TJ, VIAP and VIPA – awards programs this year. There are two significant changes from last year’s awards programs: entrants must first win their service competition, and products are entered through the Defense Video Imagery Distribution System, or DVIDS.
The Air Force, Army, Coast Guard and Navy completed their contest guidelines, as has the Defense Media Activity, which sponsors the Defense Media Merit Awards competition for civilian employees assigned to combatant commands, joint task forces, defense agencies and DoD field activities – including DMA – and their team-produced products. Military members assigned to defense agencies, DoD field activities, combatant commands and joint task forces enter their individual work products to their Service’s competition.
Unlike Coast Guardsmen, Sailors and Marines who enter directly to their service competition, Airmen and Soldiers must first win in their major command’s competition to be considered at Air Force and Army levels, respectively. This means contests for Airmen and Soldiers begin as soon as January.
The Marine Corps will release its contest guidelines in early 2017.
While DVIDS is an established system, not all contestants have used it. Entrants must create an account and include their Vision ID number when doing so. They then must associate themselves with their unit’s page; if the unit does not have one, it must be created. Registering for an account and then associating the account with the unit is required for uploading to DVIDS.
Instructions for registering for DVIDS and creating unit pages may be found at the Defense Media Awards page at http://www.dma.mil/Services/Defense-Media-Awards/.
All audio, graphic, photo and video files must have a visual information record identification number, or VIRIN, associated with the product. Products must also be captioned according to the DoD Captioning Style Guide, which may also be found on the Defense Media Awards webpage.
Rules for the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy and DMMA competitions may be found on the Defense Media Awards webpage at http://www.dma.mil/Services/Defense-Media-Awards/.