We owe you an apology. We had promised to announce the shortlists for the Guardian First Album and First Film awards this week. But we can't. You've nominated a huge number of movies and albums, and to ensure the shortlists reflect the very best in film and music, we've decided to take an extra week, so our writers can revisit as many of your nominated works as possible, and rate them against each other. We apologise for this delay, but you will have the list of the final 10 British debut albums and 10 films by first-time directors in next week's edition of Film&Music.
You'll be able to vote for the winners at theguardian.com/film and theguardian.com/music, with voting closing at the end of November. Your votes will count for half the total, and our critics' votes will count for the other half. We're weighting it that way not because we don't trust you, but because we don't want publicists or organised lobbies to hijack the voting process. The winners will be unveiled in the last Film&Music of the year, on December 19.
