11th Annual
2005 Rod Serling Video Festival Awards

Friday, June 3, 2005 8pm
on WSKG-TV

Take the intuitive moviemaking savvy of today¿s young people, add their natural creativity and curiosity, and mix it with the dedication of educators here and there throughout New York and Northeast Pennsylvania, and you¿ll end up with an hour of television that surprises and delights.

The 11th Annual Rod Serling Video Festival Awards will air Friday night at 8 on WSKG-TV, showcasing the best of the short videos submitted to the festival from students K-12 throughout WSKG¿s service area, and beyond.

Though the Festival began as a purely local event in 1995, Director Larry Kassan of Binghamton High School has been making a sustained effort for the past several years to make it a truly statewide event, and each passing year seems to draw interest from further and further afield. Award winners this year come from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

And though the students undeniably bring strong intuitive understanding of media to their projects, the best projects show an equal understanding of the precise planning, storyboarding and scriptwriting that goes into successful television and film. Most were classroom projects, though not all, and that¿s not a requirement for submissions. In past years projects from home-schooled students have received recognition.

This marks the sixth year WSKG has broadcast the winning entries, produced and hosted this year by Gregory Keeler, one of the media professionals and educators who served as judges for this year¿s festival. ¿This program is a natural fit for us,¿ he says. ¿And it¿s a terrific experience. It¿s part of our commitment to education and the arts, and we¿re glad to be one of its sponsors.¿

The annual event honors the memory of legendary TV screenwriter Rod Serling of ¿Twilight Zone¿ fame, who grew up in Binghamton. You or someone you know might be interested in submitting a video for the 2006 festival! Complete details about the Festival are available at the Rod Serling Video Festival website. As Larry Kassan says, "next year's festival has already begun!"