How we made a prize-winning marine sciences video

Above: Meha (left) and me in a still from the video

On January 15, my teammate Meha Gandhi and I submitted a video entry into the Marine Sciences category of the Advance to Australia film-making project. Our criterion was to make a three-minute video on the topic ‘Marine Sciences – India’s coastal and marine environments: A future for everyone?’

Instead of basing our video on the well-known issues of increasing pollution, dying seas, tragic oil spills and deadly waters, we decided to look at things from an optimistic point of view. There has to be something good about these vast and mystical expanses of water, right?

So how did we come up with this concept? We were hit right in the middle of the Chennai Floods. This was when our city almost drowned, the death toll shot up, electricity was out, communication technology was disrupted, and basic needs were slowly running out.

Above: Floods in Nandanam, Chennai, in December 2015 (photo by Vijay Anandh)

One day, when I was trying to get to an affected part of the city, to help with relief efforts, I noticed that all of a sudden the water in the rivers seemed to be much clearer! We researched deeper into this, and came up with a video titled ‘Clearly Misunderstood Floods’.

We were in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Science Day projects when we got a call from the Advance to Australia committee that we had been selected in the top 10 out of 390 teams that took part in this film-making competition! Sathya Ma’am – our teacher and guide – Meha and I were ecstatic!

Three days later, we got another call and learned we had bagged first place in the country in our category, and had won a week’s scholarship to James Cook University in Australia! Not only that, Pranav Sakthivel and Oviya Vendan, who had sent in an entry in the Creative Animation category, had come first in their category too, and were invited to Charles Darwin University in Australia! Vaels International School had just won first prize in two out of four categories!

Above: Meha (second from left) and I (fifth from left) receive the award from Australian High Commissioner, Ms. Harinder Sandhu (second from right), in New Delhi. (Photo courtesy: www.a2oz.org)

With great excitement, we went to the Australian High Commission in Delhi to collect our awards. Everyone at the ceremony treated us with such awe and respect that we felt like true celebrities. In fact, the Australian High Commissioner personally congratulated both our teams for our videos. It has been a real honour.

Our trip to Australia is scheduled for some time in June. We look forward to this incredible trip!

BY: Nudhara Yusuf