Duncan Jones was delighted to join the Virgin Media Shorts judging panel this year, and spoke in The Telegraph about the event.

“I have a huge amount of respect for well-made shorts, like commercials, which is my background, you have a limited time to paint a scenario and create characters you can believe in.”

“Film-making is like most other creative pursuits, the more you do it, the more you learn about how to do it. I think anything that galvanises creative people to put in the hard work of making a film, has got to be good.”

“The awards at the end of it are a terrific cherry on top but what it’s really about is giving people motivation to try, even if it’s just to watch other people’s shorts and say: ‘I can do better than that’. And for those who aren’t short listed, maybe the competition was the tipping point to get them to make a short in the first place.”

And what did Duncan think of this years 12 shortlisted films?

“They’re all excellent, of course! The quality has been top notch and I’ve had more than a few giggles watching them. I even found myself showing a few choice shorts to my mates.”

“But the real beauty of the Virgin Media Shorts competition is that everyone can get on the net and see the quality of the shorts for themselves. Get yourself on a computer and go have a look.”

This years Grand Prize went to ‘Sign Language‘ a wonderful short from Director Oscar Sharp that managed to convey a whole range of emotions in just 2 minutes & 20 seconds

So, as Duncan says, get over to the site and check out some great shorts.