Siloam Springs High School was named Video Program of the Year at the Spring Creek Festival, held at the Jones Center on Oct. 18 and 19.
High school students brought home a total of 15 awards from the event, including six first place awards, according to teacher Megan Denison.
Spring Creek Festival, held at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale, is one of the largest festivals in the midwest to host broadcast, film, production and photography contests, according to the organization's website springcreekfestival.com. High school and college students can enter the festival for free, and the organization has the goal of providing every student with an opportunity to showcase their talents and make connections in their field, the website states.
The award for Video Program of the Year focused on overall quality, measuring which school submitted the highest quality work across all the categories, Dennison said. "It was an honor to win and to be named the best video program," she said. Siloam Springs competed against some much larger high schools in the region from districts such as Springdale, Bentonville, Rogers, Fayetteville and Conway, she said.
"We were a little nervous but we had a lot of faith in the kids," Denison said. "There work is really good, its solid and they push themselves harder and harder every year."
Spring Creek is a great festival because it is high energy with really good workshops that keep the students busy and good competition, Denison said. This year's event included workshops on lighting, color correction and photography. In addition the 40/29 News truck came to the event and showed students their gear. There were also a lot of local news personalities who came and talked to students, Denison said.
"It's geared towards any media interest that any student could have, there's something there at the festival for them," Dennison said.
Seniors Averie Headrick, Ian Miller and Luis Ornelas won first place in the on-site short film competition.
Miller said the competitors were given a topic -- "What makes us unique" -- and four hours to film and edit the story. They also had to make-do with limited resources. The entire film had to be created on The Jones Center campus using equipment the students brought with them, he said.
The 1 minute, 15 seconds short film, titled "You are Unique," depicted shots of people doing activities such as basketball or swimming at The Jones Center, Miller said.
Headrick said they tried to capture moments that show how each person is unique.
"We were trying to show it without saying it," she said.
Filming and editing in less than four hours was a bit stressful, Headrick said. By the time they started editing, there was only 45 minutes left, she said.
Headrick said she was pretty confident of the work they did for the competition but was still humbled when their name was called for the first place award.
They spent the second day of the event attending workshops and visiting with college recruiters who were at the event. Both Headrick and Miller plan a career in film.
Arianna Lopez and her partner Ashley Gomez took third place for their commercial about The Jones Center.
The two students created a 30-second clip highlighting the activities available at The Jones Center, such as ice skating and basketball. They began their commercial with a shot zooming in on the front of the building like they were walking in, and ended with a shoot zooming out.
Lopez and Gomez were also limited to four hours to shoot and edit their video.
"Time goes by really, really fast when you're filming," Lopez said.
This is the third year that Lopez has competed in the festival and she said that she plans a career in film.
Dennison said she has seen film competitions have a snowball effect on student's lives.
"People don't realize that these competitions have such an effect on students, and it can really set something into motion where they suddenly feel like they have some value and some worth, they feel like they have a purpose, they have reason to push themselves to succeed," she said. "For some of them it turns into a career, for some of them its just extra handy knowledge they can use in whatever else they decide to pursue in life."
Winners for mail-in entries were:
• First place in public service announcement, Solomon Jackson
• First place in public affairs, Solomon Jackson
• Third place in public affairs, Fletcher Kelly, Andrew Kamisato and Eduardo Suarez
• Third place in broadcast sports, Noah Karp and Steven Iglesias
• Second place in show open, Alec Vaughn and Conner Broyles
• Third place in news, Jacob Ritz
• Third place in action sports, Will Gambill and Noah Karp
• First place in music video, Sean Jeppsen
• Second place in short film, Jacob Camacho, Ryke Beever, Caleb Ellis, Jacob Ritz, Braden Smartt and Will O'Hare.
Winners for on-site competition were:
• First in news challenge, Andrew Saferite and Kaiden Couffer
• First in short film, Averie Headrick, Luis Ornelas and Ian Miller
• Third in commercial, Arianna Lopez and Ashley Gomez
• First in humans of SCF (photography), Kyra Hansen
• Second in humans of SCF (photography), Hadlee Crenshaw
• Third place in photo challenge, Chandler Losh.
General News on 11/08/2017