VIDEO MATSURI

STUDENT SHORT FILM CONTEST

2018 Judges’ Comments

Happy 10th Anniversary! We are celebrating Video Matsuri’s 10th year in 2018. Thank you to all the teachers and the parents for their continued support. We were overwhelmed with the large number of entries, the variety and high quality on display this year. We were also delighted to receive submissions from many schools that have participated previously and to see the progress that they have made in their Japanese skills as well as their video-making and acting skills.

This year’s signature item was a ‘mug cup’. We were thoroughly entertained by the interesting and imaginative arrays of ways that participants found for it to be incorporated into their entries including broken and talking mug cups. Across the divisions, concepts such as sustainability, intercultural understanding and friendship issues emerged in cleverly plotted stories. Each video demonstrated that students enjoyed being involved in the video making process and being able to creatively express themselves in Japanese.

In the primary division, a wide variety of genres were covered from singing and dancing to a detective TV style drama. The winning video had a powerful message on plastic waste “gomi”, and demonstrated a well-rehearsed performance and excellent teamwork with an original rap song which made a strong impression on the judges.

We are pleased to confirm that we also had a large number of entries in the junior and senior secondary divisions, where school related issues were common themes such as friendship/bullying, as well as environmental issues. We were very impressed by the high quality and sophistication of some of the techniques used to build suspense, choreography action, editing techniques and the use of music and sound tracks. All demonstrated the strong and continuous improvement that we have seen each year.

The tertiary division entries in particular exhibited an impressive depth of content. The winning video portrayed multicultural society and a mug cup cleverly connected people and transcended different cultures.

A small number of the videos submitted had an interesting story line but unfortunately had no logical flow and the intention of the film maker was hard to understand. We would encourage future entrants to have their script checked by a third person before filming. It is also worth noting that the script needs to be articulated clearly in order to be understood by the audience when you are recording through a microphone.

Once again, it was clear that this competition is a powerful driver of language learning, while also promoting teamwork and development of multiple skills.

All entries are available to be viewed online. We do hope that students and teachers enjoy and share these videos with friends, families and beyond.

Thank you all again for taking part in Video Matsuri—including the teachers, the families and the others who supported these short film) projects, as well as the actors and film makers. We look forward to seeing your amazing videos next year!

The Video Matsuri Judges