Area Students Earn Awards in Michigan Student Film and Video Festival

Local students' visual creativity and imaginative storytelling will be showcased at a prestigious setting this month.

Two works created at the Huron Valley Council for the Arts in Highland earn Best of Show awards in the 44th Michigan Student Film and Video Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where they'll be shown April 28 on a full-size screen in the ornate, 1,200-seat Detroit Film Theater.

High school student Cameron Klinzman won for Mixed Up, a short video he animated in four days last year as a project in a class led by John Prusak. It can be played at right.

The other local winner, Dots Goot, was created by a team of Prusak's middle school-age students. Prusak, an award-winning cinematographer and media artist, teaches how to plan shots with a storyboard, create digital animations, collaborate and produce short films.

Judging and the five-hour festival are organized annually by a Royal Oak-based nonprofit called Digital Arts, Film and Television (DAFT). It invites K-12 teachers and students to submit class projects and independent work in a dozen categories, including music video, animation, newscast, sports documentary, public service announcement, comedy, instructional and general entertainment.

"The main goal is to encourage and support young people who are already using media," says festival director Kathy Vander of Berkley.

Three dozen educators and media professionals reviewed hundreds of statewide entries last month at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. They chose 25 high school winners and 22 from lower grades, who'll share more than $20,000 in scholarships and prizes thanks to support from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Kresge Foundation.

Other entrants get certificates of excellence, honor or merit. All are invited to the free festival, which starts at 10 a.m. in the 1927 theater downtown and is open to the public. An 11:15 a.m. reception in the mezzanine-level Crystal Café will salute high school winners, their teachers and families.

In addition to the Livingston County honorees,  winners include students from Birmingham, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Lake Orion, Novi, Royal Oak and West Bloomfield.

Submissions also came from Detroit, Holland, Kalamazoo, Madison Heights, Sterling Heights and smaller communities. Parents or schools paid $10 to $15 per entry, depending on how many DVDs were sent.

DAFT, an education nonprofit, was created in 1969 to promote media literacy with workshops and conferences for students, teachers and other professionals.

"This the oldest festival in the nation providing public recognition for the work of students in grades K-12," says Vander, an award-winning film producer who's an account manager at TVS Commercial Solutions in Troy. She joined DAFT's  board in 1996.

"In fact, many young people who got their first public exposure through this festival have gone on to professional careers."