Sundance Film Festival

In an effort to raise awareness of youth media makers at Sundance, Adobe Youth Voices extended an invitation to five youth media organizations — Listen Up! (New York), Educational Video Center (New York), Bay Area Video Coalition (San Francisco), Reel Grrls (Seattle), and Spy Hop Productions (Salt Lake City) — to send two students each to Sundance. The high school students will attend films and workshops like regular festival attendees, and they will also pair up in teams with the Adobe Design Achievement Awards winners to create blogs, video logs, photo galleries, and a five-minute documentary.

The Adobe Reel Ideas Studio at Sundance 2007 site is a way to interact with and share the experience of those at the festival. Starting on January 18, the site will feature daily videos, photos, and a blog to keep you posted on all the happenings at Sundance.

“We are thrilled to have this chance to leverage Adobe’s involvement in Sundance and allow young people to get more hands-on experience in multimedia and filmmaking,” said Michelle Mann, senior group manager, Corporate Affairs and Community Relations.

“Part of our message with Adobe Youth Voices is that young people have a lot to say, and it’s time for people to listen,” she continued. “The youth with whom we’re working all over the world are doing very high-quality, thoughtful, important work; and participating in a festival — especially one as prestigious as Sundance — is a fantastic way to share those voices and build more credibility for their work.”

The Reel Ideas Studio website project captures a unique collaboration between Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) students and Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) finalists and winners.

The Adobe Design Achievement Awards celebrate student achievement reflecting the powerful convergence of technology and the creative arts. The competition, which showcases individual and group projects created with Adobe creative software, honors the most talented and promising student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, and computer artists from the world’s top institutions of higher education.

Past ADAA winners, finalists, and mentors from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, and the United States are participating with Adobe at Sundance this year. These young artists will be at work in the Reel Ideas Studio, engaging with Sundance visitors who come to see their work.

“We’re helping to involve young people in a more experiential fashion than in the past,” explained Claire Erwin, senior marketing manager for programs, Worldwide Education Marketing, “and the Reel Ideas Studio is where the ADAA and AYV talent will come together.” All students who participate will also have their work recognized during a special student reception hosted by Adobe.