Rules and Guidelines

  1. The competition is open to students currently enrolled in secondary or international schools in Singapore. A school can send in a maximum of 5 entries of a digital story.
  2. Each participating group for the Digital Visual Effects and Film categories must consist of at least 3 students with one teacher as the facilitator. The Radio Journalism category only requires 2 students with one teacher as the facilitator.
  3. The digital story (Film and Digital Effects categories) must include at least 2 of these components: music, photographs, drawings and video footage. The digital story must contain original visual and aural material produced by the team and they must be copyright free. You are allowed to use Creative Commons music (royalty free) for your digital story and films. You may refer to dig.ccmixter.org and the Creative Commons website. The text for any narration must be original and written by the storytellers themselves.
  4. The digital story must be about You + Me = We. (Please note that the theme is NOT your title of the film.)
  5. The digital story should not be shorter than 1 minute and no longer than 3 minutes. Most digital film formats will be accepted including (but not limited to) avi, wmv, mov. mp4, m4v, mpg, dv and flv. The film file must not exceed 2GB in size.
  6. Contestants can fill in an online application form and submit their entries with the film download link to [email protected].
  7. Sections of the digital story that are not in English must be accompanied by subtitles.
  8. The digital story must be an original work by secondary school students. The teacher facilitator can advise but not have any direct hand in the creation of the digital stories, which includes but is not limited to researching, scripting, storyboarding, filming, editing and other post-production work.
  9. The content created must be original works by student participants of this competition and not extracted from any online references. The entrant must own all rights to all of the material in the Content, which must not have been previously publicly displayed or disseminated.
  10. The content must not include material that is:
    1. unlawful violent, threatening to any person, place, business or group, or contains words or symbols that are widely considered offensive to individuals of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or socio-economic group;
    2. libelous or defamatory;
    3. sexually explicit, indecent, obscene, vulgar, pornographic or profane;
    4. demonstrating drug use or underage smoking and drinking
    5. violating the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of third parties; or
    6. violating these Official Rules in whole or in part. The Content must not contain any visible logos, paintings, photographs or other artwork.
  11. Selected finalists may be required to submit a higher resolution of the video. Official CD/DVD submissions must be labeled with the title of the film, school, duration of film and the contact information of the teacher in charge. The organisers will not be responsible for entries that are stolen, lost or damaged in the process of delivery.
  12. A panel of selectors appointed by Ngee Ann Polytechnic will evaluate all entries. These selectors will determine the finalists and the entries will be assessed by a separate panel of judges also to be appointed by Ngee Ann Polytechnic. The judging criteria are as follows:
    Story
    1. Is the story absorbingly and convincingly told?
    2. Are the characters / voices believable?
    3. Is the story well structured?
    4. Does the story fit the competition theme?
    5. Language / Grammar
    Style
    1. Is there effective use of visuals to complement the story?
    2. Is there effective use of sound / music to complement the story?
    3. Are emotions expressed effectively in the final product?
    4. Polish of visual effects (if any).
    5. Oral skills (Pronunciation / Enunciation).
  13. The panel of judges invited by the organisers will determine the Finalists that will qualify for the top prizes to be awarded in January 2014. All participating schools will be notified of the results of the qualifying rounds by email on December 7th 2013. The decision of the judges is final, binding and may not be contested.
  14. The organisers reserve the right to substitute a prize of similar value in its sole discretion, either before or after a winner has been selected.
  15. The organisers reserve the right to reject or discard any incomplete or confusing entry and any entry not submitted in accordance with competition rules.
  16. All submitted entries will become the sole property of the National Book Development Council of Singapore and Ngee Ann Polytechnic. The two organisations reserve the right to promote, edit, screen, and use otherwise, said entries without permission from and notice and compensation to the authors at any given time.
  17. By submitting entry/entries to the competition, the participating school agrees to abide by the rules and guidelines stated herein.