Before last month, Zach Starko hardly knew Vancouver. Sure, hed frequent downtown every few weeks, but the 17-year-old Tsawwassen resident had never, until now, managed to gain a true sense of the big city.
His inexperience and curiosity fuelled his short film, Vancouver Minute, which snagged the Viewers Choice award on Monday, for the Couriers very first Vancouver Minute video contest.
The only logical thing that we thought we could do was to make a video of someone walking around Vancouver and experiencing it for the first time, Starko said. It brought out the wonder in the city, just seeing everything the city has to offer.
VANCOUVER MINUTE from Zachary Starko on Vimeo.
Filming took place in one day, and it allowed Starko to experience areas of the city hed never seen before Chinatown, Granville Island, and so on. The resulting video plays like a commercial rivaling anything Tourism B.C. has produced, capturing the excitement and innocence young travellers often feel when arriving someplace new.
The Viewers Choice award was chosen by popular vote during the contests two-week voting phase. Starko said the key to his victory was not in utilizing social media the way several other contestants had, but by mining his network of friends and family to vote. At 1,131 votes, Starkos video had well over twice the votes of the runner-up, Joel McCarthys Gastown Rap.
Not that McCarthy is wallowing in despair right now. His humorous hip-hop ode to Gastown snagged the Critics Choice award, which was chosen by the contests two judges.
McCarthy, who doesnt live or work in Gastown, conceived the idea during a brainstorming session for the contest. He said Vancouverites could appreciate a silly rap song profiling one of the citys oldest neighbourhoods.
To turn a tourist trap into a gangster rap? We thought that was a really funny juxtaposition, McCarthy said.
According to filmmaker Warren Carr, Gastown Rap captured the spirit of the Vancouver Minute contest better than any other entry. Carr, along with Peter Leitch, president of North Shore Studios and Mammoth Studios, served as the contest judges and picked McCarthys video for the Critics Choice award based on the videos quality, originality and local relevance.
The contest asked a question, it had a theme, Carr said. So the candidates that moved to the forefront [of our list] were those that paid attention to that.
The winner was simply the best based on that, an original approach, good visuals of the city, use of music and editing.
The Vancouver Minute contest, which complements the Couriers ongoing Vancouver Special neighbourhood series, was launched May 22 in a partnership with London Drugs. After the four-week submission phase, Courier staff whittled the entries down to 10 finalists. The two winning videos were chosen from there. McCarthy won $1,500 in London Drugs gift certificates and Starko was awarded $1,000.
Now what to do with all that prize money?
A new camera, McCarthy said. I knew London Drugs sold that camera, so I thought it was worth the effort doing (the contest).
