Found: talented young video producers. The Department of Tourism and Culture, in association with The Island Media Arts Co-op (IMAC), has announced the winning entry in the ‘This Place Matters’ Historic Places Youth Video Contest.
A video featuring historic Saint Patrick’s Church in Bayside has been selected as the winning entry. The creator of the winning video is Karyn Brown aged 18 from Bayside. Karyn did all the filming and the editing; her younger siblings, Nicholas Brown (age 10), Joshua Brown (age 8), and Rebekah Brown (age 6) assisted and acted in the video. As the winning entry, Karyn will have the opportunity to work with the Island Media Arts Co-op to reproduce her video to broadcast standards. She will also receive a cash prize.
The contest asked young Islanders to produce a short video using the “This Place Matters” theme to feature a valued heritage place from their community.
Heritage Minister Robert Vessey noted that engaging youth in heritage is an important component of the department’s mission. “We have received very positive feedback on our ‘This Place Matters’ television commercials,” said Minister Vessey. “We know that we have an excellent level of talent among our young video artists in Prince Edward Island and this contest engaged them in exploring community heritage through multimedia resources.”
The runner-up in the “This Place Matters” video contest is a group of four students from Ecole Evangeline with their entry on Eglise de Mont Carmel. The group was composed of Marina Sanford (aged 17), Diane Irakoz (aged 16), Donald Gallant (aged 17) and Brandon Arsenault (aged 17). The four are students at Ecole Evangeline’s multimedia class and the video was their first effort in multi-media production. They also will receive a cash prize.
Corin McFadden, director of IMAC, said that this contest drew on the experience of IMAC in working with youth. “We have great contact with a large number of young artists, both in the schools and on the streets. This contest gave these youth a real-life opportunity to conceive, plan, shoot, edit and produce something that could make a contribution to their community.”
These videos and other entries can be seen on the IMAC channel on Youtube.
The contest submissions were reviewed and were assessed on a number of factors including the historic place that was selected, its importance to the Island community from a historical and cultural perspective, how the historic place was captured visually, the level of adherence to the overall theme of the campaign, and originality of presentation within the framework of the model given to follow.
“This Place Matters” is a television campaign under the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Heritage Places Initiative. The campaign features community residents talking about why particular heritage places matter to them. Current television commercials feature heritage places in Elmira, Wood Islands, Victoria, Rustico and Alberton.