And the winner is … Liam Biglow of Qualicum Beach.
The young local multi media wizard received a prestigious award at the 17th Annual EyeLens Film, Video and Animation Festival April 21 in Victoria.
He was nominated along with Nikk Beach and the School District 69 students received many accolades for their submissions.
The pair attended the Gulf Islands Film and Television School (GIFT), a unique rural film camp on Galiano Island, offering media intensives with a focus on developing new filmmakers.
The school, founded in1995, has had amazing success with its students’ films and videos at national and international festivals and is now Canada’s most award winning film school.
Biglow, who is in Grade 9 at Kwalikum Secondary School, was nominated in the game design category for creating a video game called Legends of Gemish and won top prize for his work. He said while he was making the game the word Gemish came to mind when he thought of the dark ages and that is how he came up with the name. He said the game is not 100 per cent done, as he needs to work on it in a more advanced computer platform.
“I have tried to finish it many times, but I can’t edit it on my computer and I have not thought of an ending yet.”
He said the game starts off with a happy safe world, “then one day you learn that you are actually the son of a conspiracy theory guy going against the realm of the world you live in.”
Biglow said he will be going back to GIFT this summer where he will take an advanced 3D film/video game course.
For winning the game design award, Biglow received a $500 scholarship. He said he would love a career as a game designer or anything to do with multi media.
Jonathan Piteux, one of the mentors at the film school admitted earlier that Biglow definitely had a chance of winning and his prediction was accurate.
“I played the game. It was good … and there are not that many nominations for games this year and his stood out,” he said.
He added Biglow worked hard and deserved to win.
“It’s really a tall order to make a game in a week … he put in a ton of work.”
Piteux couldn’t say enough about the talents of Beach when it comes to film making.
Beach, who attends Ballenas Secondary School, was nominated in the category of presentation of an issue for his film Lifeless, unfortunately his work didn’t win but Piteux predicts whatever Beach puts his mind to, he will succeed at.
Beach came to the school for the first time last year and Piteux admitted Beach, who just turned 17 on April 17, has a huge personality and he was a student who really stood out.
“He is a natural filmmaker. He is right into photography. He has an eye for cinematography and a lot of talent for his age. He will do well at anything he wants to go into,” agreed Piteux.
This year’s festival and award ceremony was held in Victoria for the first time ever after a 16 year run in Vancouver.
Besides showcasing the top talent of B.C.’s emerging filmmakers, the event also featured a key-note presentation by award winning filmmaker Bart Simpson, crowd favourite at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
There were 140 videos entered, all of which were produced at (GIFTS) during 2011. The EyeLens nominees are up-and-coming media artists who braved the rigours of their courses and produced stunning work in a short period of time.
For many of the students, it’s their first production and Piteux said they are people to watch out for.
