2014 Winners

Zach Gavin is a senior at Keene High School in Keene, New Hampshire. He and his group created “A False Reality” as part of their digital filmmaking class. “We decided to do Climate Change because it’s a big issue right now and we wanted to use a little bit of fear to tell people about what could happen in the future.” One student joked about putting a fish in a bowl, and the idea clicked and became the basis for their video.

Zach says that building the set for their video was definitely the hardest part, noting that the entire story had to unfold in just twelve feet of space. They borrowed an old reptile tank from a pet store, and visited a toy store to ask if they could borrow a few town sets and immerse them in water. Graciously, the toy store lent them a couple hundred dollars’ worth of products. Once they had their props, the group had to build their set and capture their shots. “It was a ton of logistics and testing that we had to do – two days to shoot and two weeks to build it. But that’s filmmaking.”

When asked if he has any other hobbies, Zach admits that he works on films pretty much all of his free time. His efforts have paid off as his work won awards in other contests and recently earned him a trip to Washington, DC to meet President Obama. This fall, he heads to Orlando, Florida to study filmmaking.