ILPC Pilots Documentary Contest

By Jeanne Acton | Friday, August 20, 2010 1:48 PM

At the 2010 ILPC Summer Workshop, instructor Andrea Lorenz works with adviser Bill DeFries from Corpus Christi King High School. DeFries and his editor took the New Media class to learn how to create videos, audio slideshows, websites and more. Photo was taken by a 2010 ILPC Summer Workshop photography student.

It’s time to tell us your school’s UIL story — video documentary style.

The Interscholastic League Press Conference will offer a new documentary film contest this year — “UIL: Our Story.”

We hope that this new contest will help motivate journalism students to begin exploring new media and longer storytelling. And we also hope that it will help the League increase its archive of personal stories of students’ UIL experiences.

For the contest, students will need to choose a UIL contest and then document the story of the teammates involved. The film should show the full story of the contest. For example, if the journalism students choose an athletic team to feature, the film should include practice, team meetings, games, player interviews, etc. — the entire story of that team’s experience throughout the season.

If the school chooses to film an academic or music event, then the same process should be used.

Obviously, this is a long-term project and will take more than a week to complete. As students complete portions of the film, we encourage advisers to air the videos through the broadcast program or post the videos if you have an online newspaper.

This is the perfect yearlong project for advanced or experienced students.

Each school can submit up to three documentaries covering different UIL activities.

To participate in the contest, the school must be an ILPC member (yearbook, newspaper or broadcast). Submissions are due May 13.

For more information, see the entry form at: http://uiltexas.org/journalism/ilpc/contests.