This story was published in the January 2005 issue.

Animated Video Captures Paint Branch High School’s Third Consecutive CINE Golden Eagle Award

An animated video created by 21 Paint Branch High School (Burtonsville, MD) students has garnered the school’s third consecutive CINE Golden Eagle Award. “Animated Self-Portraits,” a three-minute video, won the prestigious award in the national competition’s Entertainment—Comedy category of the Student & Pre-Professional Amateur Division.

CINE, (Council for International Non-theatrical Events), a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization, has recognized the work of outstanding filmmakers, video producers, directors and other craftspeople in the film and video industry since 1957. Both professional and pre-professional productions are judged for such criteria as creativity, visuals, and effective communication to the intended audience. An awards ceremony will be held at the National Geographic Society’s Grosvenor Auditorium in Washington, D.C. on April 14.

“Animated Self-Portraits” was created in March 2004, during a seven-day animation workshop supported by Paint Branch’s Signature Program in Science and Media and by The Washington Post Educational Foundation’s Grants in the Arts. Visiting artist Leila Cabib encouraged each student to create a self-portrait with markers and colored pencils, and in a series of drawings, animate a metamorphosis of that self-portrait into a fantasy portrait expressing his/her personality, hobbies or dreams. Each student then created another set of drawings transforming his/her last drawing into the next student’s first drawing, to create a smooth transition from one self-portrait to the next. Students created a grand total of 1094 drawings.

The two animated videos which won the CINE Golden Eagle in 2002 and 2003 were “Move Over, Moon” and “Take a Walk.” Both were created in five-day workshops taught by Cabib. The students who created “Animated Self-Portraits” are: Adu Adadey, Avedis Aghguiquian, Jason Anderson, Bradford Bass, Khellie Braxton, Emerson Diaz, Crystal Evans, Jessica Hillman, Tim Jee, Dennis Johnson, Derrick Jones, Amee Kothary, Mike Kwon, Dennis Nguyen, Jessica Ostopoff, Regina Stern, Jack Warner, Katie Waterworth, Jeremy Williams, Courtney Wright and Wayne Zhang.