May 27, 2015

It’s been another year of award-winning films from Oak Harbor High School students. More than a dozen OHHS media students brought home honors from the Northwest High School Film Festival held May 19 at Seattle’s historic Cinerama Theater.

Senior Jude Dacula won two first-place trophies in the categories of Educational/Instructional Videos and Commercials. Judges called his video on how to rebuild a skateboard “Very creative” and “Great storytelling.” His commercial award was shared with classmates, Danté Williamson and Rheeno Kwak who combined to present a slightly warped infomercial promoting yearbook sales. The ad also featured sophomore Shann Mercado.

Also gathering awards were sophomores Corbin Phipps for his commercial “School of Hip Hop,” and Judah Tirado with his art film “A Most Extraordinary Finding.” Similar honors went to seniors Caleb Konovaloff and Taylor White in the PSA category for “Selfie” and “To the Office” respectively. Junior Alissa Casey snagged an award for her music video “Cherry” as did Aaron Vasquez and Keandre Williams for “Nobody Stoppin’ Me.”

In the Dramatic Narrative category several OHHS students shared honors for their Whdbey Children’s Theater Film Camp movie “Trials of the Mind.” Filming, editing and performing in the thriller were seniors Kyle Abrea and Dakota Kinonen, as well as sophomores Diana Ponce and Tessa Needles. OHHS graduates David Punch and Asia Pruyne also took part in the production.

Nearly 200 films from 25 Puget Sound-area high schools were entered in this year’s competition. The festival is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. In addition to receiving awards, Oak Harbor students stepped forward to be the festival hosts, award presenters and official photographers this year. The theme was “Film Noir/B-movie” and many OHHS students dressed the part. Teachers from many of the participating schools praised the Oak Harbor students for their attire and excellent effort during the show.

After the show, the OHHS students chose to have lunch at the Wallingford Dick’s Drive-In and ended up on the Dick’s Facebook page — https://www.facebook.com/DicksDriveIn?fref=ts.