MediaMag Production Competition Shortlist 2024: Being Seen

This year your entries fell into five very clear categories.

Nearly half of you produced music videos, after several years of limited entries in that form. We’re delighted to see that so many of you have opted for this, as the music video form allows you to demonstrate both your mastery of technique and style, but also to tell important stories about representation, gender and social issues. For this reason we will be rewarding two awards in this category.

We’ve also seen a tsunami of well-crafted short films, covering a diverse range of topics and genres. We’ve grouped these into two categories: genre shorts, reflecting the conventions of humour, horror, and film noir; and drama shorts, which don’t necessarily fit into any particular genre but tell interesting and well-constructed short stories.

Our fifth category is the Barney Oram Creativity Award, given annually in memory of Barney, a much-loved, inspirational Media Studies teacher and writer. This group consists of work which we have considered particularly creative, original or technically innovative.

This year’s theme was chosen to prompt you to think about representation in all its forms, and it has borne fruit; loads of you addressed this directly in your choices of narrative or theme. Many of you focused on issues of mental health, and gave us poignant insights into the experiences of specific conditions or broader concerns like loneliness, loss, ageing, family dysfunction or identity. Several videos made brilliant use of both social media impact and home movie footage and childhood memories to explore these issues. In terms of representation of particular groups, we were struck by the recurrence of feisty young women, female friendships and rivalries, older people, and those with memory loss. Most importantly, the entries as a whole reflected a strong understanding of media language, awareness of genre conventions, and great confidence in the roles of editing and cinematography in telling your stories. It has been a pleasure and privilege to view your work – thank you for contributing!

We are delighted to have actor and BAFTA nominated film director Alex Kayode-Kay as our guest judge. Alex is an actor, producer and director from South London who studied Film and Broadcast Production at London Met.

His critically acclaimed film, The Ballad of Olive Morris is an incredible snapshot of a moment in the early life of the radical black feminist Olive Morris which ignited her long political career as an activist and campaigner for marginalised people in her community. The film was nominated for Best British Short Film at the 2023 BAFTAs.

Alex is the perfect person to judge this years’ awards – not only because he was an inspiring guest speaker at the MediaMag Conference in 2023 but also because he, like Morris, is committed to telling stories and shining a light on experiences that might otherwise go unseen.

If your video has been shortlisted, you will receive a personal email within the next week giving further details of the screening and awards ceremony at BFI Southbank on Friday 12th July, which we hope you’ll be able to attend. Please watch your inbox for more information. If you have any queries about our selection process, do email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

If you’re not on the list, sadly we can’t offer every entrant detailed feedback, but please be aware that we’ve had to make impossibly difficult decisions, and that your video has been viewed several times, and much valued. We’d like to mention some very-near-wins which we agonised about but which were either over-long (our only real rule) or which for technical reasons would not play well on the big NFT screen (eg too dark, poor sound or overly glitchy), so do check to see if your video is one of those. And whatever the outcome, please, please please continue to make video – on your phone, in your bedroom, with your mates, in school or out – you guys are the next generation of creative filmmakers and your industry needs you! 

• The Recipe – Jamie Lellis-Ferreira, Alexandra Park School
• Midnight Robbery – Henry Garner, Berkhamsted School     
• Energy – Mat Louis, Lingfield College
• Être vu – Twyla Coltman, Strode's College
• Record – Gina-Mae Ellis, Hardenhuish School
• The Adventurer – Ben Moulding, The Derby High School

• I'm Scum – Rudi Banfield, Uckfield College
• Typa Girl – Sara Ceperko, Little Heath School
• Jealousy Jealousy – Jessie D'Souza, Waldegrave School
• ur so pretty – Ethan Edwards, Great Baddow High School
• Skeletons – Fiona Gartshore, Parkstone Grammar School
• How Do I Say Goodbye? – Rachael Ginn, Berkhamsted Sixth Form
• Figure It Out – Jorge Zeno Lee, Alexandra Park School
• Larissa Little (Get Him Back) – Lily Shaw, Saffron Walden County High school
• Chunky – Eleanor May Wood, Parkstone Grammar School

• The Last Laugh – Aidan Smart, Christopher Dalton, Jack Allingham and Rhys Austin-Valentine, Northampton College
• Scarf Swing – Alfie Hudson, Long Road Sixth Form College
• A Matter of Mind – Isabella Hannington, Little Heath School
• It’s a Mind Game – Ali Khan, Farnborough Sixth Form
• Smoke and Shadows – Millie King, Matthew Billingham, Benjamin Coe, Robyn Pates, Northampton College

• The Lesson – Elsie-Mae Blackburn, Orleans Park School
• The Beginning and the End – Zachary Gazzard, Graveney School
• To Be Perceived – Safa-Noor Mirza and Isobel Khaldi, Southend High School for Girls
• Bear – Scarlett Olivier, Bradfield College
• Where I Belong – Louie Warren, Callywith College  

The Ones That Got Away

In addition to our final shortlist, we want to congratulate some of the great videos that very nearly made the cut, but missed out by a whisker:

• Susanna Tankard, Long Road Sixth Form College, for Where the Winds Blow – a delightful mystery adventure opening with fine attention to detail and a nostalgic style which reminded us of Children’s TV from 50s and 60s.
• Nell Wilkinson, Parkstone Grammar School for their poignant and empathetic The Other Woman music video
• Eleanor Buckley, The Downs School, for their hilarious comedy documentary Shut Up Fam, channelling Ali G in a parody of gangsta youth
• Phoebe Mowse, HDSC Alton College, for their colourful and vibrant music video Merry Happy
• Lily Coombs, Long Road Sixth Form College for Leave It on the Dancefloor, a thriller drama featuring the brilliant performance of a dancer battling her inner demons
• Andrew Barrett, Graveney School, for their compelling reverse chronology, telling of a tragic and disturbing event
• Millie Holliday, Orleans Park School, for their impeccably feelgood and stylish Car-crossed Strangers, exploring how shared hobbies can bring lonely people together
• Amelia Milne, Hurtwood House, for their chilling and technically intriguing sci-fi opening Isekai

Many congratulation to these entrants – and, once again, to all of you who entered. We’re very much hoping to see you again next year!