NZ'S MEDIA DESIGN SCHOOL STUDENTS TAKE OUT BEST OF SHOW AT CROWBAR AWARDS

Neil Williamson and Rachael Walker from Media Design School in New Zealand walked away with the Best of Show Award at the 2006 Crowbar Awards held at the NTUC Auditorium in Singapore on Friday night.
In addition Williamson and Walker received a total cash prize of $1,500 ($500 for winning the Best of Category Award for Advertising and $1,000 for the Best of Show Award) and an internship at BBDO Singapore.
All six “Best of Category” winners from Advertising, Design, Interactive, Photography, Film and Crowbar Challenge are automatically contenders for this presitgious award which recognises the Best of the Best in Student Creative Works.
The winning team also collected two Golds for “Advertising - Print/Press (Newspapers & Magazines)” and “Advertising – Copywriting”.
Said David Bell of Media Design School: “This is the first time we have won the Best of Show and we are extremely thrilled. Crowbar is our premiere student competition, and we take success in the competition as a solid indicator of the quality of the course. Winning this distinguished award is a great encouragement to our students and this will definitely spur them on to greater heights.
"All thanks to the many industry people who’ve given so much support throughout the year, with a special mention to Geoffrey Dickman at TVNZ, Arran Birchenough at Getty Images, Lexie Ribot at the NAB, and Sandy, Jo and Mark at CAANZ, and our Crowbar mini-mentors Josh and Jamie at Ogilvy, Darryl Parsons at Consortium and Angus Hennah at JWT."
Two Bronzes also went to Tamryn Baumgartern and Miho Tanaka for their Navman radio campaign and their Placemakers ‘For the toughest renovations’ campaign (which was also the runner up in the Newspaper Advertising Bureau’s Student Creativity competition this year). Jeton Morina was a finalist with his work for ‘Knobs n Knockers’ retail outlets.
Other Media Design School students also did well:
Bronze for 2D animation- Luke Lovegrove- ‘Lingerie’
Bronze for games (offline)- Steffan Hopper– ‘Shear factor’
Bronze for music video- Luke Lovegrove- ‘Seaside suicide’
Bronze for Illustration- Robert Fraser ‘Who am I?’.
Winners of the “Best of Category” in Advertising, Design, Interactive, Photography and Film walk away with a cash prize of $500 and an internship at either BBDO Singapore, Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, MSN Singapore and Shooting Gallery.
The winner of Crowbar Challenge receive a cash prize of S$500. Sponsored by Clear Channel, this category helps students interpret brief and encourage them to develop campaigns around the given brief.
The Crowbar Awards is an international student creative event that seeks to provide an annual platform to honour the best and brightest young creative talents and to celebrate their achievements.
This year, the Crowbar Awards attracted a record breaking 1,337 entries from 23 schools from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
This represents a 52% increase in the number of entries when compared to the previous event last year, surpassing also the record entry of 1,100 received in 2004. Of the total entries received, 143 were awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze.
The winners were selected by panels of independent experts comprising creative and art directors, designers, photographers, film producers, film curators and film directors. The entries were judged on the basis of originality and fresh new ideas.
Commenting on the entries received this year, Crowbar Awards Co-Chairman Calvin Soh said: “The standard this year was leap and bounds ahead of the last. There was a genuine effort at coming up with brand new ideas. There was a tangible freshness to the work that bode well for the future of our industry.”