Peace Arch News: ‘Cool experience’ leads to award for local youth
By Alex Browne - Peace Arch News
Published: June 09, 2011 2:00 PM
Four White Rock Elementary fine arts program alumni have a renewed interest in filmmaking, thanks to an unexpected honour they received last month.
Taylor Snider, Ashley Elliot-Orsetti, Julia Bicknell, and Liam Johnson won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Early Teen Filmmaking at the 16th EyeLens Film, Video and Animation Festival, presented by the Gulf Islands Film and Television School May 14 at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre.
The four – now students at Earl Marriott Secondary – were recognized for the short comedy video, Rob Or Be Robbed, which they co-wrote, produced and directed a year ago during a special media-intensive program for Grade 7 students of former fine arts teacher Catherine Hanna held at the Galiano Island-based film school.
The video, one of 129 entered into this year’s festival, is viewable on YouTube, where it was recently uploaded with all 2,100 videos produced at the school over its 16-year history.
Clocking in at almost six minutes, it’s a slickly-paced dark comedy about a constantly-bickering couple with financial problems who resort to robbery of a local store to pay their bills.
