Blazers win awards in media festival

Several Blazers won awards for their work in the annual Montgomery County Schools Media Festival, which took place at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring on March 30.

According to BNC sponsor Shay Taylor, the Montgomery County Schools Media Festival is "a competition for all the schools in Montgomery County, public and private, to show off what they've done and compete with other schools in specific categories." The festival was sponsored by MCPS.

About 300 schools sent approximately 200 entries to the event, said festival coordinator Michael Warner. The competition was separated into seven categories: photography, graphic design, animation, multimedia, websites, videos and sequential skills, which includes projects such as PowerPoint presentations.

Blazers won awards in the photography, animation, multimedia and video categories. This year, because each school was only allowed to send in one entry per category, Blazers held a "mini-festival" beforehand to determine which entries would be sent to the competition.

The entries were judged by "professionals in the field," according to Warner. The judging took place on March 22.

Award winners will have their entries displayed in an All-Stars Showcase at AFI on April 10. In addition, the first-place entries will be submitted to the International Children's Festival, said Taylor.

Every student that participated in the festival received a T-shirt and a certificate of participation, as well as a chance to see their work on the big screen. "That's motivating to a lot of people," Warner commented.

Students are planning to participate in the festival again next year, said Taylor, adding that she would like to have more students involved in Blair's competition "so we know we're sending the best to the county festival."

The following students won awards for their entries:

Ivy Flores – first place for "Info Flow" in Multimedia, second place for "SGR Spectacular Promo" in Animation, second place for "Spike's Day at the Park" in Animation

John Willmott and Joe Martin – second place for "Damascus vs. Blair" Highlight Reel in Videos (sports), third place for "Homecoming Football Game Promo" in Videos (sports)

Chris Nguyen-Gia, Ely Portillo and John Visclosky – second place for "The Letter" in Videos (entertainment)

Stephanie Nguyen – first place for "Portrait of a Modern Geisha" in Photography

Maya Kosok – first places for "Snowy Creek" and "Passion" in Photography