Six students of Northport Elementary School in Port Elgin (Saugeen Shores) earned a third place Provincial award in the Royal Canadian Legion’s Remembrance Day video competition held last year.

The six Grade 6 students, who are moving on to senior school, wrote, produced, starred in, filmed and edited their video independently. Teacher Andrea Anions said that the the students did much of their work on their own time often skipping recesses to even filming in student Maya’s home garage.

The students got the idea for their video from a former play held at the school that featured actors in shadow. “We used i-movie with a phone and then messaged it to an i-pad,” said Emma Redmond. “We also researched non-copyrighted music to use for background.”
The video is three minutes 15 second long with the students also playing the ‘shadow roles’.
The various entries into the competition entered through their local legion branches, with Northport students entering at Port Elgin Legion Branch #340. “To win a placing is a real achievement,” said Branch President Bob Harrison, who presented the cheque and winning certificate to the students. “Each entry has to work its way up through the entire Legion rank of judging so we are very proud of these local young people.”

The students won $150 which they will share but said, instead of each of them taking their individual amounts of $30, they are going to “pool their winnings” but haven’t yet decided what the funds will go toward.
Principal Suzanne Kennedy said that two Northport students are also winners in the ‘poster’ contest but have not yet been announced.