Two teams of Avonworth High School students recently earned first and third places in competition sponsored by Pittsburgh Filmmakers School of Film.

"Candy," by Tad Abramowich, Nathan Pool, Sam Werley and Olivia Konopka, all sophomores, took top honor in the animation category, while "The Viral Video Experiment," by Nick Hobbs, Jon Wattras and Nick Work was named third in the documentary category.

Course instructor Gabrielle Nicely explained the concepts of the films. "'Candy' is a stop-motion adventure through a world made entirely of candy. 'Viral Video' is about the evolution of viral videos and the group's attempt to create its own viral video."

“Candy,” made in Computer Graphics 2 class, took a little over three weeks of classes and study halls. “Viral Video” was started at the beginning of the year as an out-of-class project and was finished at the end of March for the contest deadline.

While most of the students worked on the films as class requirements, some of them became involved with the projects mainly because of their interest in the art of filmmaking.

Regarding the “Viral” film, Nicely noted, "Nick Work and Jon Wattras are not enrolled in my classes this year. Nick comes here from study hall every day on an unofficial independent study. Nick Hobbs is in Videography and Advanced Photoshop.”

Speaking of their animation work, Olivia said, "Making the film required a lot of teamwork since it took so much time to position all of the candy that we used. It also demanded much patience and creativity."

Nick Hobbs described “Viral” as being "…a mash-up of music videos of popular songs from the 1980s to modern day."

Several seniors played roles that parodied musical groups such as Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson and 'NSYNC.

Contest judges included Brady Lewis, Director of Education, Pittsburgh Filmmakers School of Film, Photography and Digital Media; Pierina Morelli, producer/photographer/editor, WQED Multimedia; Jennifer Saffron, Director of Education, HEAR ME CREATE Lab, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.

Nicely said that in addition to Avonworth's involvement with their film products for the contest, the shirt design and logo for the festival were created by Nick Work, and the poster was created in Advanced Photoshop by sophomore Jared Cuteri.