Loyalist College students won four awards at the Broadcast Educators Association of Canada.
The association awards reward creative and technical skills in television/video, media/animation and radio. Students from all across Canada submit projects with 12 video and six audio awards up for grabs.
Loyalist took home four first place video awards for Drama, Comedy, Commercial or Promotion, and Short Corporate or Public Service Announcement on the 26th at the awards gala.
Of the four that won, Hiding stood out as the only short film to take place in a certain time period, choosing the film to take place in the 1940’s. The film attempts to bring the story of the boy who cried wolf to occupied Europe. Eric Howard, the faculty advisor for the film, had never done anything like this before.
“This is the first production in my 11 years of experience that I’ve been involved in that takes place in a certain time period,” said Howard. “We wanted to stay true to the 1940’s time period as much as possible.”
Making the film feel authentic required long days and hard work, with the crew often pushing the limit to get the best result, said Howard.
“They would shoot maybe three days a week, full 10 hour days,” said Howard. “We wouldn’t allow you to do more than a 12-hour day, but they pushed it every time.”
All the hard work seemed to pay off. Howard said he was proud of the end result.
“It’s difficult for the professionals to do, let alone a student production to try and get that time period captured, said Howard. “I can honestly say this is my favourite production in my career, it really set the bar for films after this.”
Megan Crowe, the producer of Hiding, said she was also proud of how the film turned out.
“It feels great, it feels awesome knowing that all your hard work and dedication didn’t go unrecognized,” said Crowe. “It feels really good winning a national award.
As the producer, Crowe oversaw scheduling duties and keeping the crew in contact with each other. It was tough to get everyone organized, she said.
“All the kids in the movie were in school and we had a doctor playing a role so he was busy all the time,” said Crowe. “So it was very hard to schedule that and to correspond with the crew as well because we have other projects and things going on.”
The cast helped ease everything up though according to Crowe.
“It was great working with the whole crew and cast and everything, said Crowe. “We worked really well together. We’re all best friends, like a big family. The cast was awesome as well. Considering they’re doing this for free and on their free time.”
Crowe said she took a lot from the project in the end.
“I feel really confident now, much more confident than I did in first year, said Crowe. ”It was really fun to get this sort of hands-on experience producing a film. I know a lot of other schools don’t actually get to produce a film like this, like a short film. I took a lot away from it, it was a great learning experience.”
The other films from Loyalist that won are Peter and Pals for Comedy, Price Check for Commercial or Promotion, and Drunk Driving for Short Corporate or Public Service Announcement.