Schools: Kaitao Middle School international award finalist for music video

Kalani Allen, 12, is one of the students who was in the cast of Kaitao Middle School's music video. Photo/Stephen Parker

Kaitao Middle School has been named a finalist in the Senior Secondary Music Video section of an international award.

The SAE ATOM Awards celebrate the best of Australian and New Zealand screen content from the education sector and media industries.

Kaitao Middle School head of technology department Peter Boot said 10 students made up the cast and crew of the music video.

He said it took about seven to eight months to create, and then about three weeks to edit the video.

Mr Boot said because they were in the senior secondary category, their video would be up against ones made by senior high school students.

The music video was made last year, and received the grand, overall Jenny Griggs Creativity Award at the 2015 national MADE Awards, he said.

The MADE Awards seek to establish an outlet which enables students to show their work to a much wider audience.

They then decided to enter it in the international SAE ATOM Awards.

Mr Boot said it was a lip-synced video and the tune was In the Air by Morgan Page, Sultan & Shepard, and BT, featuring Angela McCluskey.

He said they spent term one brainstorming, finding a track and creating a story board, then spent a few terms each Friday touring in the van to locations.

These included beaches at Papamoa and Maketu, the Redwoods and other local spots, as well as doing green screen work.

"It gives a lot of students a perspective on things that are not necessarily a standard part of the curriculum.

"A lot of jobs out there are very creative."

Mr Boot said it was quite demanding to make a video of high quality.

He said they do this project because it was creative and the children enjoyed the process.

He said they would love to win the award, as they had been successful with the video at a national level.

"It would be really nice to step it up a level and win internationally.

"The kids are really quite excited about it. It'll be interesting to see how we go."