Hundreds of young people enjoyed being part of the Childnet Film Competition 2022 – including Lauren, who joined the judging panel.
The finalists and winners of the competition were last week announced across the Primary, Secondary and Storyboard categories.
Childnet Digital Champion Lauren was part of the prestigious judging line-up who selected this year’s winners. She joined representatives from the Motion Picture Association, BAFTA, British Film Institute, Disney, BBC Own It and the British Board of Film Classification, on the panel.
Here, Lauren reflects on that experience and another fantastic Film Competition!
Did you enjoy being part of the panel?
I found being on the judging panel an amazing experience – it was a delight to watch all of the shortlisted films. Talking to all of the industry professionals and listening to their ideas and opinions was extremely interesting. Everyone on the panel had different views on each of the films and picked out even the smallest of details that really added to the films. Many discussions and debates came up about different topics, lines and themes within the film and it was especially intriguing because we all had different views on certain topics. All round it was a fun experience that definitely brought a lot of joy and interest from me and everyone there.
What were the shortlisted entries like?
The quality of entries across all categories was absolutely fantastic – all of the films were extremely fun to watch and talk about. The range of ideas and film styles within the entries was also very diverse, so at times it was difficult to compare films to one another, and they were all very good and deserving of being shortlisted! We could see the amount of work, research and enthusiasm that was put into each film which gave us a lot of positivity and thought. A lot of the films were also very insightful and portrayed lots of differing opinions on this year’s topic: gaming and relationships online. Some films would choose one interpretation of the topic and others would choose another, so it was always enjoyable to see what each film and each team thought.
Why is this a good way to promote online safety?
The Childnet Film Competition gives young people a more hands-on experience for exploring e-safety. They’re able to come up with their own ideas and ways of expressing themselves that would be easier for their peers to understand. Especially because it’s coming from young people themselves, it gives them more of a voice and enables people to better understand our views regarding the year’s selected theme and points of view that adults may not consider for us. It is a fun way to research and learn about a topic and you get to have lots of fun making the films as we could evidently see this year!
Childnet Digital Champions
The Digital Champions help the Childnet Digital Leaders team to ensure that the programme is youth led. They represent a youth voice which is essential to the programme’s success, and support it with module development, content creation, events and consultation, as well as representing the programme in the wider online safety community.
