Lead Judges' Special Award - Casey Carsel

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  Sponsored by:

  Department of Conservation

"Manny's New Zealand Story and Keyboard of New Zealand" by Casey Carsel

Description

Lead Remix Judge Helen Baxter's special prize goes to Casey Carsel for the quality and range of her entries. Particularly Manny's New Zealand Story, an amusing montage of stories throughout New Zealand history using a mix of stop motion animation, and remixing or archive photos to create a whimsical and slightly surreal piece. Helen also liked her Keyboard of New Zealand which re-contextualises Kiwi imagery into modern montage of shots containing a puzzle of how the images correspond to individual keyboard keys. This would make a great poster. This award is sponsored by The Department of Conservation

The Department of Conservation has provided some amazing New Zealand conservation experiences for special entries that grab the attention and admiration of our Lead Judges, Helen Baxter and Nat Torkington.

Selected judges comments

"This piece [Keyboard of New Zealand] is a reminder that good graphic design is often acheived very simply. The layout of images is immediately recognisable as a keyboard, and quickly draws you in to the puzzle the artist has laid out with the collection of images, and how they relate to the keys. The images chosen to represent NZ are well-chosen and many are excellent photos in their own right. "

"Casey's digital story entry tells historical stories through the lens of a fictional character with playfulness and humour. The skill that has gone into the writing, editing and animation had me impressed. I like that care was taken to showcase the historical stories, but that they were used as pieces within the wider fabric of the entry."

"Funny and poignant in parts and very NZ. Reflects a little of the social media world and the publication of opinions on all sorts of things going on. I'm looking forward to seeing the next installations of Manny's life."

"[Casey's digital story] shows a lot of thought and creativity has gone into writing and telling a story using a range of content available online and elaborated on with original content. The character of Manny is engaging and humorous, and even though he speaks with no voice as the audience we have no problem relating to him."

Casey's descriptions of the entries:

Manny's New Zealand Story

I made a stop motion animation with a mannequin as the protagonist as the basis of my digital New Zealand story. The character goes through various events of his life relating to New Zealand. From when he fished up New Zealand (people used to pronounce Manny as Maui according to the story) to when he ran through town after the February Christchurch earthquake. Although this idea has probably been done before, I thought it would be fitting for the situation as that way the viewer, as a New Zealander, would find it easier to put themselves into the situation. I think I used New Zealand digital content well in not only the conventional picture usage, but in making Manny's room have content and through the video usage, especially in getting all the special allowances to use specific pieces of film. The room was also created specifically for the film and not only did I get all the permissions for both film, music, and pictures, I also created some of my own and used good ol' Kiwi ingenuity to get me through any difficulties. While completing the challenge, I had fun and think (well, hope) I made it original even within the task idea. I think the viewer would want to spend time with this entry because as it teaches you things, it also jokes and in using an unusual medium it will keep the readers attention for longer than just a slideshow or just a video. In spending so much time with this entry (enough to think of the mannequin as a person more than jokingly) I have gained a passion for this, and I think that passion communicates to the viewer too. It was difficult keeping everything in perspective when timing the subtitles, but I did my best to have the highest quality of every aspect possible for a student film. Overall this entry is so gosh darn awesome because it is so gosh darn different, so gosh darn fun, and so gosh darn information into things about New Zealand that people would not necessarily know.

Keyboard of New Zealand

My keyboard is an amalgamation of what makes New Zealand New Zealand. It uses a mixture of New Zealand and international images from a range of sites that are under both complete public domain and restricted Creative Commons licenses. The keys that are alphabet letters have pictures that correspond to the letter, however I won't say specifically what they stand for or why I've included them, because that would ruin the magic. This entry is so gosh darn awesome because people will be able to stare at it for a long time and still find new meaning from every key. I also want to influence viewers to question of themselves what they think makes New Zealand New Zealand. I have also put it on DeviantArt to show both the national and international community what New Zealand is all about. By using the keyboard, I wanted to mix modern life and the past and show that our past is still present in everyday life. I also wanted to show the significance of our culture as a whole; if even one key is missing, it become difficult to communicate. In the same way, if part of our culture is missing, we will no longer be what we are today. There is also the combinations of these different keys that I am using to make words even now. In the same way, different combinations of understanding of New Zealand culture can lead to different understanding of selves. On the surface, putting New Zealand culture to key is only aesthetic, but so many meanings and views of life can come out of it when further explored.

Sources

Refer to Manny's New Zealand Story and Keyboard of New Zealand for sources.