2015 Winners

Dylan Kroft is a sophomore at the Kaohsiung American School in Taiwan. And while creating a video for the contest was an assignment in his Environmental Science class, Dylan was happy to do so because he loves filmmaking in general. He was immediately drawn to the topic of suitable farmland because of the possibility of solutions in the near future. He explains that “the technology is there, much of the infrastructure is there, and people just need to know about it. In addition, a few years ago, I read about vertical farming in a magazine and found the idea fascinating.” Not only did this article intrigue Dylan, it was also the inspiration behind his video.

Dylan has created many videos for class projects but this is his first video of strictly animation. He enjoyed the editing process and shares that his biggest challenge was figuring out the timing for each segment of his video, wanting each to be “just long enough for the viewer to fully digest but short enough to fit everything and keep it all interesting.” He recommends the animation route to future participants because when limited to one minute, he believes you can do a lot more with animation than you can with live action.

At the moment Dylan doesn’t know what he’ll do with his prize money, so he plans to save it for something worthwhile. Dylan loves to read, especially fantasy, enjoys watching movies of all sorts, and playing soccer. If he had a super power, he’d want telekinesis because “the whole idea of moving objects with my mind just sounds amazingly cool.”