Every year the City of Garland Stormwater Management sponsors a video contest for middle and high school students. This year, Robert Hensley’s Digital Audio Tech class participated in the contest in hopes of winning one of the cash prizes.

“I feel really good about it, it was a very nice experience,” junior Madison Aarons said. “I had fun going out and finding clips. Just going and setting everything up.” 

For students to participate in the contest, they have to meet one of three qualifications: current enrollment in the Garland Independent School District, current enrollment in a private school located in Garland, or be a current resident of the City of Garland. Participants also have to follow a set of rules. Their work must be a maximum of 28 seconds and include a five-second title screen with their names, school, grade, and teacher-sponsor if applicable. Parents and teachers can give guidance but cannot help with the making of the video. Their submission must be royalty-free, should reflect the “Keep Garland Beautiful” theme and all submission and entry forms had to be received by April 11, 2022, at midnight CST. 

“I think the hardest criteria to meet would be the content because you have to make sure you only add what’s important, because you have such a short time frame,” junior Lionel Winding said. “So anything extra that doesn’t add onto it would be unnecessary. Since you have only 28 seconds to work with, I think that was the hardest part.”

To determine who will be the winners, there will be a panel of judges along with a criteria list. This list includes: originality and creativity, educational content, relevance to the City of Garland, adherence to theme and rules, and technical quality. Each criterion has a certain amount of points and in total they add up to 70 points. 

“I know our students have put a lot of effort into their projects, and whether we are recognized by the judges or not isn’t my personal criteria for judging success,” Hensley said. “I believe we’ve had a very successful contest experience whether we have one, two or zero prize winners. With that said, I would be a little surprised if NG didn’t have an entry recognized in the top three prize positions. You never know for sure, but I’ve definitely got my fingers crossed!”

Middle and high school submissions are judged separately, so there will be three winners for each division. For middle school: first place gets $500, second place gets $300 and third place gets $150. For high school: first place gets $750, second place gets $500 and third place gets $250. Apart from the contest, the City of Garland has included an Earth Day award with a cash prize of $250. The Earth Day Award will go to the most viewed video from April 18 at 10 am to April 25 at 10 am. 

“The best part about the video making process was trying to figure out different techniques and ways to portray our ideas on the camera and how to record them,” Winding said. “So I would say the creativity aspect of that would be the best part. ”