Young people encouraged to get smart and submit a movie

Midweek. Wairarapa Youth Council's film competition - inviting young people to make short films on their smartphones. Youth Councillors Dale Huhu and Laura Bradley.

A comedic YouTube craze has inspired Wairarapa youth leaders to start their own film festival.

The Wairarapa Youth Council is running the WaiYouth Film Competition, inviting young people aged 12 to 24 to submit their own videos, captured on their smartphones.

The brief is simple: films are to be two minutes long, and the budding film makers are to "use their imagination".

Wairarapa youth councillors Laura Bradley and Dale Huhu came up with the idea after watching Vines videos online.

The videos, made by users of the file sharing app Vine.com, are spliced together in a series of rolling sketches and posted to social media.

They usually involve stand up comedy, running gags, irreverent dance moves and pop culture references and figures, such as Kanye West and Hillary Clinton.

"We thought we should do something similar ourselves, and have our own mini movie festival," Laura said.

"It'll be cool to see the stand up comedy our own teens can do."

The idea of filming on a smartphone was a practical one -- as "most teens have a phone".

"Young people are more likely to have a smartphone than be able to get hold of a fancy video camera.

"Smartphones don't always film in great quality, but it doesn't matter -- the kids just need to use their imagination and get their creative juices flowing," Laura said.

Those creative juices can produce anything from slapstick comedy to miniature art-house films -- and can be, Laura said, as simple as a conversation between friends, or a piece of art in progress, filmed time-lapse style.

"They can be anything -- music videos, snippets of people going hunting, mates hanging out or dancing to Thriller.

"Or just silly things that make people laugh."

Entrants will be competing for prizes in three categories according to age group (12-15 years, 16-19 years, and 20-24 years), with the overall winner taking home a GoPro camera.

Judges will be Carterton animator and game designer, Minty Hunter, and Kokomai creative director, Heidi Holbrook.

The youth council will hold an event next month to show all the entries, and announce the winners.

Laura said the competition would not only encourage young people to use technology for positive purposes, but help foster youth participation in the art.

"There are some creative young people out there -- so they might discover a talent in film they didn't know they had.

"Hopefully, we'll get some new Jemaine Clements or Jono and Bens out of this."

For more information, email youthteam@connectingcommunities.org.nz, or go to the Wairarapa Youth Council Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/Wairarapa-Youth-Council. Entries close on Friday July 10. No films including inappropriate behaviour will be accepted.