Maui schools are big winners at national media competition

Maui Waena comes away with six awards, Kamehameha Maui earns four

Maui Waena Intermediate School eighth grader Aaron Omuro said it felt like "a fairy tale" to see his Crazy 8s broadcast team's video played to thousands of people while his school earned six awards in a nationwide media competition.

"It was the greatest experience of my life, like I had so much confidence going into the competition, but I didn't think that we would get first place," Omuro said Tuesday. "But when they said our name nationally and I got to see my video up there, shown to thousands of students and teachers across the nation, it was so surreal and it's like it came right out of a fairy tale that we won." 

Students from 13 Hawaii public schools won a total of 36 national media awards, including eight first-place awards, during the 2022 Student Television Network National Convention on Saturday and Sunday, the state Department of Education announced Monday. 

Moanalua High School and Maui Waena Intermediate School garnered the most prizes, winning nine awards and six awards, respectively.

"I'm so excited because I think this is the best that we've done," said Maui Waena media teacher Jennifer Suzuki, who has attended every convention since 2010. "I don't think any school has won both of the Crazy 8s categories in one year, so that was absolutely insane."

About 3,000 intermediate and high school students across the U.S., including about 185 students from 17 public schools in Hawaii, competed, according to a DOE news release. The event was a hybrid between virtual and in-person showcases and ceremonies from Long Beach, Calif. Previous years were canceled or completely virtual due to COVID-19. 

The competitions required students to, for example, build an anchor reel and motion graphics, produce a music video, fictional movie trailer, commercial, public service announcement and short film -- all under strict six- to eight-hour deadlines.

Maui Waena finished first in the Crazy 8s Short Film and News Magazine middle school categories, first in the Short Film middle school category, second in the Anchor Team middle school category, third in the Music Video middle school category and honorable mention for the Feature Story middle school category. 

Kamehameha Schools Maui came in first in the high school Music Video category, first in the high school Action Sports Editing category, third in the Crazy 8s News Magazine middle school category and honorable mention in the Silent Film middle school category. 

Lahaina Intermediate received honorable mention for the Public Service Announcement and Commercial middle school categories. 

Maui High earned first place in the high school Motion Graphics Editing category.

Suzuki said the owner of the Haiku House Maui vacation rental allowed the Maui Waena students to stay at a discounted price so they could "have a place to bond and opportunity to produce really good work."

The experience taught the students persistence and problem solving, said Suzuki, noting how the feature story group went through 27 rejections before nailing down a story or how the teams need to be prepared for other setbacks like faulty equipment and software glitches. 

Meeting the deadline was stressful, Omuro said, especially when the video stalled for a half-hour while uploading due to the STN's server being overwhelmed by over 100 other videos being uploaded during the competition. 

"We fried the computer," said Omuro, whose broadcast team did their story on historic Komoda's Bakery in Makawao town. "It was stressful because we were not sure if we were going to turn it in on time and submit this video that we were all proud of, and thankfully we were." 

Maui Waena student Alyza Sitts-Leyva said it's a little "bittersweet" knowing that it's her last year in middle school and last time working with the team of about 20 students. 

"I'm really proud of this team this year," Sitts-Leyva said. "It was just amazing to see how everyone was able to come together, like we didn't have a lot of practices and we were kind of hesitant going into this, but it was amazing to see how we all came together and within one night, we all kind of fell into this dynamic that worked and we were able to overcome anything that was thrown our way." 

Her favorite part about the competition was working with the team and producing content that "we were all proud of and had faith in."

"Communication is key, especially when you're trying to produce something where there's like 10 to 12 different people working on it, so it's important to be able to talk to everyone so there's at least some kind of connection with everyone," she said. "It's also really important to ask for help even when you don't feel comfortable doing it because I don't think I could have completed any of these videos without the help from my team."

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com. Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.