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MediaMag Production Competition Shortlist 2026 – Reflections

Thank you so much for entering the MediaMagazine Production Competition! We were delighted to receive your entries and are blown away by the range and ambition of your work – and by the guidance and support of your teachers too.

This year we received entries from nearly 60 schools and colleges – and 20 of them feature on our shortlist. This is our biggest and most diverse haul yet, and, despite all the odds stacked against video production work, confirms our sense of its increasingly powerful role in the study of film and television.

We know it’s hard to make generalisations from such a diverse range of exciting and skilled productions, but here are just a few of our observations from our many hours of viewing.

Control, confidence and restraint

Every year we see increasing competence and confidence in your production skills, and this year’s entries are no exception. Many of your productions display brilliant storytelling, where narratives are propelled by tight, well-structured and top-notch performances without the distraction of unnecessary effects or flashy edits. You have demonstrated an ability to make the most of your limitations – low key or chiaroscuro lighting where appropriate, the creative use of voice-overs, resourceful choices of location and thoughtful, well-edited soundscapes. Across all our award categories, we’ve been impressed by your abilities to script and structure non-linear timelines, flashbacks, and internal voices which match technique and purpose. It’s also exciting to see the references to texts and forms you’ve studied in class and from your own viewing experiences and preferences.

The most striking aspect across all our entries is that they are all about something. None of them are purely technical exercises designed to demonstrate specific skills or knowledge (although they do that as well!); every shortlisted piece at some level reflects a worldview, a social or cultural comment, or an issue meaningful to its maker. This year, many of your entries reflected anxiety about growing up into the ‘adult’ world and the pressures and uncertainties facing young people from social media, AI and technological developments. Coercive relationships, societal corruption, patriarchy and the abuse of power figure strongly. Nostalgia for the innocence of childhood, a pre-digital life or past memories is a recurrent theme, often in the form of beautifully edited home video footage, photo albums, or ‘old media’ references contrasted with the scariness of the modern world. Interestingly, several entries reflected on learning processes and the nature of production – different approaches to filmmaking, anxieties about revision, writers’ block and the difficulties of project-presentation and decision-making. Once your NEA and exam requirements have been addressed, the forms and genres of your productions need not be an end in themselves, but hopefully a starting point for your own personal reflections and filmmaking identity.

We’ve based this year’s award categories on your choices of genre and form, and have seen them all – soap opera, thrillers, animated idents, screen adaptations of poetry and music scores, pastiches of classic Hollywood styles, personal reflections, police procedural dramas, speculative fiction. One thing is clear: you are incredibly well-informed viewers, and you really do know your genres and conventions, even where you’ve knowingly subverted them!

Short Films and Openings

This year we’ve seen fewer Film Noir narratives, which at their best demonstrate a rich understanding of the implications of cinematography and tropes of the genre in the context of a properly worked-out narrative. Unexpectedly, we also saw fewer slasher stories and comparatively little horror; zombies, however, are obviously still popular and meaningful metaphors for angst and terror, and blood-splattering is an ongoing motif. Another favourite genre, the crime drama, has largely rolled back on gun battles and visible dead bodies in favour of detailed and plausible crime reconstructions, incident boards, inquiry methods and well-performed detective interviews, perhaps breathing new life into a tired and often cliched format.

Sci-fi/dystopia

This year we also received a high number of futuristic or dystopian entries – so many, and so varied, that we have included them as a whole section of our short film category. They deal with the ambivalent power of technological advancement, the promises and threats of AI, dehumanising scientific developments, and the sinister future consequences of environmental neglect. Perhaps not surprising in this uncertain age, but the diverse ways our shortlistees have approached these issues suggests they’re not going to go away any time soon. And importantly, the backdrop of a dystopian society enables you to build your own imagined environment, or world, in which to explore alternatives to real-world issues.

Music Videos

While still the production genre of choice for many, this year we’ve seen fewer studio-style staged performances in specially constructed sets, emphasising professionally inspired colour and lighting, and editing wizardry. This year our entries tended to be more holistic pieces integrating lip-synched performances with more realist versions of the narratives beyond the lyrics through found footage, image montages, and varied locations, often urban and stunningly shot. Songs from favourite divas (think Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo etc.) were often reinterpreted by ferociously angry and effective performances, or by simple well-framed storylines with ambiguous endings.

The Barney Oram Creativity Award

Each year we select a handful of videos from across all categories which we feel are outstanding, in memory of the late Barney Oram, an inspirational film teacher. Our criteria include: productions which use technologies, visual effects and animation imaginatively to explore meaning; those which are based on a strong and well-executed concept; and those which through implied backstory, location and cinematography construct a complete fictional world. Many of your entries do some or all of these things; we hope our selection reflects the most interesting of what you have produced.

There will be two awards in this category.

  • Tirion Liddell, Kings Monkton School: Grow Up
  • Caitlin Rose Phillips, St David’s College: Unravelling the Art of Craft
  • Joseph James Gray, Queen Mary’s College: Seashells
  • Finlie Hynd, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College: Asbestos
  • Lily Catarina, Paston College: The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me
  • Olivia Maddox, Tupton Hall School: Procrastination and Productivity
  • Amelia Murgatroyd, Tupton Hall School: An Urn
  • Anya Morgan, Orleans Park School: Trinity
  • Stella Rogers, St Edmund’s School: Flesh and Stone
  • Corran Rushfirth, Finham Park School: Madame Lizanne Mystic Medium
  • Ustym Kizin, Hurtwood House: Red
  • Sofia Postlethwaite-Gabassi, Hurtwood House: Betterment
  • Oli Baker, Cheadle Hulme School: Eisoptrophobia
  • Ethan Cox, Highams Park School: One Love After Another
  • Mia Ainge, Orleans Park School: RESIST
  • Lily Challis, Saffron Walden County High School: Haven’t I Given Enough
  • Harry Cassin, Salesian College: Teenage Dream
  • Lily MacArthur, Little Heath School: Memory Lane
  • Isla Bridge, Southend High School for Girls: LABOUR
  • Leung Nga Ching, Kellett School: Slow It Down
  • Cora Belfield, Uckfield College: My Presidents Are Black
  • Jay Bromby-Phillips, Poole Grammar School: Chaos Space Marine
  • Catherine Johnson, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College: Breathless
  • Alfie Curtis, Queen Mary’s College: The Afterwoods
  • Josiah Hall, Queen Mary’s College: You Need To Hear This
  • Imogen Thomas, City of Norwich School: Behind Closed Doors
  • Aurora Karaj, Southend High School for Girls: Mood Ring

Jenny and Claire would like to give special commendations to a few videos that were outstanding but sadly didn’t make the final shortlists

  • Hoy Leung, Poole Grammar School: Kyle (I found you)
  • Mikey Habicht, HSDC Alton College: Don’t Blame Me
  • Kamini Chak, Kellett School: Smile
  • Isabella Prinn, Southend High School for Girls: When We Were Young
  • Francesca Ellis, Bohunt Sixth Form; A Perfect Day
  • Jemima Luviluka, St Thomas More Catholic School: Love & Lies
  • Mason Jefferson Davies, Coleg Sir Gâr: Exit Music (For a Film)
  • Einav Ayers, Queen Mary’s College: Memoria
  • Imara Weerawardana Jayasooriya Appuhamilage, St Thomas More Catholic School: The Town’s Killer
  • Georgianna Morgan, St. David’s Catholic College: Ty Gwyn Road
  • ZiYi Yang, Bethany School: The Story of a Plate
  • Laila O’Sullivan, St Edmund’s School: In Another Life
  • Saeran Ball, Highams Park School: EMPLOYEE #62
  • Lyna Terghini, St Michaels Catholic School: Ripples