Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) Broadcasting student, Balvinder Singh a/l Joginder Singh was awarded the first SIGNIS Asia Media Award by SIGNIS (World Catholic Association for Communication) on 17 September 2008 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The SIGNIS Asia Media Award is an award presented to the winner of the one-minute video production contest held in conjunction with the SIGNIS Asia Assembly organised from 15 to 18 September 2008 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The final year student from UTAR received a trophy and two certificates for his excellent video production.
His production, titled Superman, was created in accordance to the theme of the SIGNIS Asia Assembly, which was 'Children in Asia and the Media"
In describing his winning entry, Balvinder said, "My video was about a little girl who watched the Superman show on television and subsequently became influenced that she could also fly like her super hero. She then wore a cape and jumped down from the 5th floor of a building and died."
He explained, "This video was produced to emphasise on the negative impacts of the media on children if not utilised properly. It also pointed out the ignorance of society in educating children on the power of the media. My video showed just how limited knowledge on the media can contribute towards a little girl's death because she decided to imitate the act of her super hero, thinking that everything that she saw on television was real."
Prior to succeeding in the contest, Balvinder faced many obstacles. He said, "One of the challenges that I encountered during my preparation for this contest was the time constraint of producing my video. As my video was produced while I was completing my internship, I only had the evenings after my working hours to shoot the video."
Apart from that, he admitted that the biggest challenge of the contest was trying to produce a video that ran within the one-minute time frame. He said, "It was tough coming up with a short video that can easily be understood by the audience while bringing meaning to the theme of the SIGNIS Asia Assembly which was 'Children and the Media'."
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