AV News Magazine | Page 23

AV News 175 - February 2009 The one thing that did catch my eye was the beautiful buildings around so I got loads of lovely pictures of all the old bits and all the different shapes you could see, like the church or the hall were we viewed the sequences. That night it was the special dinner so we had to dress up smart. It's where they did some speeches and talked about the festival. Then of course we went to the bar!. On Sunday the last day of the festival we had to pack our bags and be out of our rooms before the morning session started. Later in the afternoon we went through all the prizes and who won what. There was 4 prizes from the audience vote. I didn't get anything for that, but oh well. Next up there were 5 highly commended certificates and I thought I would have won one of them because I normally get highly commended, but no. Then you had special awards for best creative imagery, best photography, creative sound track, best first time entrant (thought might be me! but no). Next there was best documentary, best theme and fiction, best music, poetry and song, best humour, I didn't think I'd get one of them and I was right, I didn't! Then finally you had 3rd, 2nd, 1st, prizes, and got none of them. But then they mentioned an award that wasn't in the booklet. It was to be awarded by the RPS President. The award was for the youngest ever entrant into the International AV Festival. The youngest entrant was 17 years old, but this record had now been broken - by me! The one thing I'm most proud of is breaking this world record because the youngest entrant now, thanks to me, is 13, let's see who can beat that! I was given an award of 12 months free membership for the RPS (Royal, Photographic Society). I should get a package through the post with all the information and stuff very soon. The one thing that kind of upset me was that the weather was absolutely gorgeous and we were in the dark most of the time! My marks out of 10 are 9.5 and I would love to go again. I made two camera batteries flat and filled one 2GB card up. On Sunday afternoon I went through and got rid of the rubbish ones and now all together I have 396 photos to play with, so I'm going to make a sequence on it I think! Watch out for more sequences from Jake, we think he should do well. We need more young people like this to safe guard the future of our hobby. Please encourage any you know to have a go at making AV's. Eds. Page 21