When Rainer Herrera picks up a video camera, he can see his future.
It started back when he was just a 12-year-old boy in Miami. He found a slideshow online and something about the way the images moved to the music captivated him. In 10th grade, he got his first camera and started making his own videos. In his junior year of high school, he joined a TV production class, where he directed morning news segments.
But last year, when Herrera heard about a new film competition for students in grades six through 12, he was reluctant at first.
"I guess I got kind of intimidated," Herrera said. "It took me probably a week or two to decide. All of a sudden I told myself that I really have nothing to lose."
He was right. With his music video entry, "Wake Up," Herrera won the grand prize in Track Two of the competition, a prize package to attend the South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), where he got the chance to mingle with the artists he looks up to.
Now open for submissions in its second year, the Young Minds Digital Times Film Competition invites fledgling filmmakers from all over the world to show their skills. In this digital age, organizers said, the free international filmmaking contest gives young students a chance to express themselves using the technology of today.
"There's a unique thing that happens when a kid steps behind a video camera," said Amy Strecker, the competition director. "They feel empowered. They take control of their learning and become active participants rather than passive observers."
Films must be four minutes or less and turned in by March 15, 2010, and students can submit videos in two tracks. In Track One, students can submit either a music video or a public service announcement. These films integrate The Education Proclamation, a set of goals that school leaders can reference in order to offer a relevant education for their students. Track Two is wide open with seven categories ranging from documentary films and animation to the One Take Wonder category, where students can use any digital recording device to tell a story in a single shot.
After the deadline, the videos will go through a three-tiered judging process, which starts with a public vote and ends with Emmy-winning filmmakers and directors making the final selections.
"There's a huge group of creative digital arts kids," Strecker said. "We wanted to create a venue for them to get recognition for their work and get feedback from industry experts."
The winners will be announced May 21, 2010. Among a slew of cash prizes and honors, the school with the most entries will receive $1,000, and the teacher who sponsors the most students will also receive $1,000. And for the second year, one lucky grand prize winner from each track will receive a prize package to attend SXSW.
In schools, the competition gives real-world relevance to class projects. Teachers can see how students apply what they've been learning as they vie for the big prizes. At Manor New Tech High School in Texas, for instance, Les Simpson required his students to submit a video for the competition.
"From there, I turned the students loose," said Simpson, the school's media coordinator and digital literacy instructor. "I acted as a coach more than a teacher."
His students would bounce ideas off of him and he would fire back with questions for them to answer themselves.
Justin Rightmer has been in Simpson's class since the seventh grade. For his video last year, he decided to make a PSA about piracy. In the minute-long video, Justin plays a pirate who's trying to download illegal music and movies on his computer. Suddenly, an arm reaches out of the computer and starts attacking him. The message: "Pirates are cool but piracy isn't."
It was a tricky shot, he said, with the arm coming out of the computer. Justin had to figure out how to angle the camera correctly and overlay the shots in post-production. But he made it work.
Then, weeks later, while Justin was sitting in his math class, Simpson walked in and told him that his video won the grand prize in Track One.
"I was especially thrilled that Justin won," Simpson said. "He has such an interest and drive for this. I've watched how his interest has shaped his worldview."
Simpson said he is looking forward to the competition this year. He will have 32 to 40 kids, doubling last year's class size. He moved into a bigger room, invested in new cameras and green-screen technology. Organizers said the contest inspires students to make quality films because their videos can be seen by anyone anywhere.
"The competition adds real-life context into the filmmaking," Strecker said. "It puts films on an international stage, where anybody in the world that's been looking at the Web site will be able to see them. That's an incredible opportunity."
Now a freshman at Miami Dade College, Herrera cannot enter the competition again this year, but he carries with him everything he learned from his experience. His winning video, an experiment in stop motion, shows him getting out of bed and facing the new day, synced to the song "Path" by Apocalyptica.
"The message," he said, "is basically to wake up, see the world, follow your dreams."
Registration for the competition ends Feb. 19, 2010 at midnight EST. For more information, visit www.youngmindsdigitaltimes.com.
