Submission categories for the festival are listed below. Awards are also given in various technical categories such as Best Cinematography, Editing, Sound, etc as the judges see fit.
DOCUMENTARY/ACADEMIC
A documentary film is a video that subjectively expresses or deals with facts or conditions about a certain topic. They are true stories that document real events. For example, a video that shows a day in the life of your school. An academic film is a video that is created for a class project and deals with a specific subject. For example, a video on the history of Burlington made for History class. would qualify as an academic entry.
COMEDY
A comedy film is a humourous story that is intended to make the audience laugh. To evoke a sense of spontaneous amusement or gaiety, manifested in laughter
DRAMA
A dramatic film is any entry that introduces a set of circumstances or an event that explores serious, emotional or psychological overtones. The video that has a more serious story that is developed through character interactions.
ACTION/ADVENTURE
An action/adventure film will usually deal with a character on a quest or mission. During this quest, obstacles are met and overcome. The story is enhanced with scenes that contain well choreographed sequences of high-paced action.
SUSPENSE/HORROR
A suspense/horror film deals with situations that can sometimes be scary or make the audience feel a sense of uneasiness.
COMMERCIAL/TRAILER
Commercials and Trailers must be 90 seconds or less in length. Any commercial that promotes a product or service. Any film trailer that promotes an original student film - no downloaded footage permitted.
PSA
PSA's must be 60 seconds or less in length. A Public Service Announcement makes people more aware of a particular topic by giving factual information. A PSA reinforces the goal of a medium being used to change society’s behaviour positively.
EXPERIMENTAL
An experimental video is one that may not follow any particular formula or format. The audience is at once, enlightened, entertained and intrigued. Exploring different camera techniques , camera angles, soundscapes or how people perceive visuals and audio could all be a part of an experimental video.
MUSIC VIDEO
Any genre of music video must have the entire length of the original song or been composed by the video
creator or another student.
ANIMATION
The animation category includes vector, pixilation, claymation, cel animation, stop motion techniques.
Including storytelling techniques.
RE-CREATION
This category sees students "unpacking" and analyzing the construction of their favourite films or television shows. In the process, they learn the various roles in a film production, and they practice working as a team to create a finished product that as closely as possible recreates a short scene from a film. This recreation includes "mirroring" the scene from everything to location, acting, lighting, and sound, whilst ensuring that the scene is identical in terms of framing, camera positioning, script, shot number/length, and scene length.