Students’ success at national film awards

Filmmaking students from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) have won five awards at the Kodak Student Commercials Awards, held at the Regent Street Cinema, London.

A record 18 university film schools took part, entering a total of 61 films in the competition, which invites student filmmakers to devise and make a 30 second commercial using one ten-minute roll of 16mm film provided free-of-charge by Kodak.

The awards are open to students who are studying on a NAHEMI member course in the UK or Ireland, and prizes are awarded for craft categories as well as ‘Best in Brief’ and ‘Best Overall’. 

The students were supplied with live briefs for McVities Jaffa Cakes, for The Hygiene Bank (a charity which is targeting hygiene poverty,) for The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, and for the homeless charity Shelter from the Storm. The competition was judged by a panel of representatives from the agencies that supplied the briefs, and Kodak.

UWE Bristol BA Filmmaking entered a total of eight commercials in response to the set briefs, with three of these films winning awards:

Best in Brief for McVities Jaffa Cakes: Sennen Laing, Fin Woods and team for ‘ZappaCakes’.

Third in Brief for The Hygiene Bank: Saige Tanna and her team for their clever and considered advert for the hygiene poverty charity with ‘The Miss’.

Craft awards:

Animation for McVities Jaffa Cakes: Aubriel Nababan, Tszkei Mok and team for their inventive and irreverent Terry Gilliam inspired advert ‘The First Temptation’.

Production design and make up for Jaffa Cakes: Alice Bennett, Georgia Bulkeley and design team for ‘ZappaCakes’.

UWE Bristol’s ‘Zappa Cakes’, for Jaffa Cakes, also took second place overall in the competition. The playful and incredibly well realised Frankenstein re-make commercial was described by the judges as ‘a fantastic concept where every element brought the idea to life, and you could tell they really had fun, which in turn made it fun to watch’.

John Podpadec, Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking at UWE Bristol, said: “We were once again thrilled to be invited to take part in the The Nahemi-Kodak National Student Commercials Competition which has been running since 1981. Huge congratulations go out to all the students involved and especially to those who won prizes.

“A special thank you goes to Peter Hort and NAHEMI for organising the competition and to Eastman Kodak for their continued support, allowing students the opportunity to shoot on 16mm film and to learn about its enduring aesthetic appeal as well the rigour and professionalism associated with realising moving image work through photochemical and not digital means.”