2007 Winning Videos: Massachusetts State Finals
Video Shorts Awards: Note: Videos are avilable at YouTube; Search for Imagining Tomorrow. We are in the process of embedding links to this site.
The Video Shorts category included videos that were 4–6 minutes in length, showcasing a creative story or a documentary. First place for a creative story went to Luke McMahon, for his video “Heat”. Luke is a junior at Landmark School in Beverly, MA; his story centered on a time where energy shortages result in extreme prices and desperate actions. Luke writes in his afterword, “After creating this project, it has struck me that the future is going to drastically change in the next 20 years whether we want it to or not. There are signs of this in the world already . . . fighting over the control of oil.”
All of the awards for documentaries went to students from Northampton High School:
First place for a documentary went to Matt Motamedi, Chris Nagle, and Lauren Garlock, for “Wood Chip Burner at Cooley Dickenson Hospital”, the only hospital in the state to use wood chips as the heat source for their furnace. In the afterword, Lauren writes “I didn’t know about sustainable energy before this video project. . . . It is important for people to know that there are different routes that you can take for using more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly energy sources.”
Second place for a documentary went to Tom Klekotka and John Lyons, for “Wind: Tomorrow’s Clean Power”; the video researched the possibilities of wind, structured around an interview with Sally Wright, a wind engineer from the University of Massachusetts Energy lab.
Third place awards in video documentaries went to the team of Bryan Magdalensky, Jake Ruyffelaert, and Tom Belavance-Grace, for “Grease Cars”, about a conversion kit company in Easthampton; and to the Motamedi, et al team, for “Solar Panels at JFK Middle School”.
Video PSA Awards:
The PSA category was restricted to videos that captured their message in 30 to 60 seconds.
The first place award for a PSA went to “Blue Pill, Red Pill” by Colin Sullivan, a senior from Northampton. In his afterword, Colin writes that a fellow student created a PSA showing the indifference of students to the subject of global warming; [which showed] that “teenagers don’t seem to be facing the issue of global warming and its impacts” . . . I decided to make a PSA that would get the attention of this target group . . . I decided to use the blue pill and red pill concepts from The Matrix. If you take the blue pill, you will be denying what is already happening; if you take the red pill, you will become aware.”
Second place was a tie between two entries from Mt. Greylock: the team entry from sophomores Danny Chhuon, Andy LeBarron, Don Maffuccio, and Jim Nichols, Hooves Productions, for “Global Warming PSA”. Their PSA was educational and comprehensive, from problems to solutions; in their afterword they write “Although the United States is merely 4% of the earth’s population, it is responsible for 22% of the earth’s greenhouse gas emissions. As the most powerful nation in the world, . . . [we] believe the United States should set the bar and take a great stand against global warming.”
The other second place award for a PSA went to “Days of Summer?” by senior Charlene E. Michon, Charbar Inc., which focused on the coastal impacts that global warming would have. Charlene writes “ . . . Who doesn’t like the beach and great summer weather? . . . [But] there are three million people that live within the average sea level round the world. I have changed my daily lifestyle, but sometimes I feel like I alone am not enough. I have learned by doing this PSA that it is one way I can reach out to my community. We could end up with the whole world fighting to protect our planet.”
Third place was also a tie, going to a freshman Mr. Greylock team, The Rubber Ducks: Sean Peltier, Dominic Boschetti, Nick Delnegro, Caleb Pudvar, and Mary Shanley, for “Where’d That Snow Go?” In their afterword, they write, “We’ll be the first to admit, when we started this project we knew very little about global warming. Over these last few weeks we’ve learned an immeasurable amount of information. We as humans embrace the role of the “most intelligent animals on earth”; unfortunately we have yet to embrace the responsibility that comes with . . . that role.”
The other third place award went to the SAJ team: Jordan Adams, Anthony Bellman, and Samuel Garavaltis, for “Make a Difference”. A team member writes “During the making of [this] PSA, I learned many things. I personally will start changing my daily habits, to better our future. I hope that this PSA will convince others to do the same.
Five entries received a fourth-place-plus award: Mike Helly, a junior at Northampton, for “Global Warming Opinions”, which captured the unsettling indifference of fellow students. The remaining four were all from Mt. Greylock: “Earth in Twenty Years”, an anchor format by KMD (Michael Leja, Katie-Rose De Candida, and Max Joder); Ryan O’Conner, Revo-lution, for “Saving Energy”; “Global Warming” by CGJK (Gina Riggins, Jessica Lemieux, Kelsie Leon, and Cameron Szymanski); and “Wobal Glarming” by Purple Armadillos (Erin Bates, Bridgette Tattersall, Kristy Hamilton, and Autumn Wolf).
Fourth place awards also went to the other two finalists from Mt. Greylock: “Global Warming” by Einstein Productions (Brittany Calderwood and Trevor Rathbun) and “Global Warming PSA” by the All Stars (Lindsay Maynard, Brigid Flynn, Ty-Kia Hay, Hayden Kuhn, TJ McCarthy and Brier Turner).