Choice, Green Screen Challenge awards

Ecole Grosvenor Wentworth Park School's talented filmmakers have won another pair of awards, this time claiming the ViewFinders Green Screen Challenge and the Peoples' Choice Award for the enviro-comic movie, Coal, Dust in the Wind.

The Grade 5 class's movie depicts a trash-talking battle between a wind turbine and a dirty gang of coal. The cocky coal crew rolls up in a Hummer, chased by screaming girls and boasting that the enviro-battle is "in the bag." But the elegant turbine strikes back, arguing that free, clean wind is an energy source on the rise. The pluses and minuses of both methods of producing energy are debated in a shouting match, with the coal boys accusing the wind turbine of killing two birds a year. The turbine counters that coal pollution kills 2,000 animals a year. Coal is further humiliated when its Hummer is replaced by a hybrid, but takes consolation in the fact it'll be diamonds in 10,000 years.

Julia Macdonald played the voice of the turbine. She often drives past it. "I thought it looked really cool," she says. Asked what it was like when they won, she says, "Oh my gosh, I was so happy."

Hannah Coombs co-directed the film. She did a lot of the shooting and editing and she also had the idea for one of the short film's more surreal moment. As the tough talking intensifies, a coal boy calls the turbine an eyesore.

"Okay, well, at least I don't look like bunny droppings," the turbine says. Cue a knock-off Energizer Bunny banging her drum. "Wait, what? Okay, they do not look like my bunny droppings."

That was Hannah's idea. "It just kind of popped into my head," she says modestly.

Fulton Logan was one of the pieces of coal. "It was fun," he says. "We were trying to make it part comedy and we were putting some information in there."

While as a piece of coal, he was saddened by the defeat, as a human, he's become a fan of wind energy. "We learned a lot. I actually didn't know that much about wind turbines," he says. "Now I know how important they are to the earth."

Teacher Andrew Stickings said the green theme came from the students. "The wind mills are popping up around the province," he says. "So they came up with the idea to do a debate between coal and wind. At this stage of the game, they're pretty confident. I just give them the camera and a couple of the parents take them. They go out and get the job done."

The students filmed on location at the Goodwood windmill near Exhibition Park and the Carroll Pontiac dealership, which provide the Hummer and the hybrid. The two prizes totaled $1,500. Some of that has gone to buy a green screen, already used to create a flying carpet for a video segment in a school play, and there are plans to buy an SLR camera for future projects.

The class has previously won awards for films on Titanic and racism.

jon@jontattrie.ca

Watch Coal, Dust in the Wind at http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/stickia/Site/Movies.html