Pieces of Taos
MEDIA CONTEST!
What’s YOUR piece of Taos?
Coming to the big screen on December 12th 2024 at the TCA is our first-ever Pieces of Taos Media Contest. Open to middle- and high-school students in Taos County, we’ll award three $750 prizes and five $500 prizes to the top entries exploring the people, places, and things in our magical community. The audience at the TCA will then vote on a Best in Show for a sweet 4k camera.
All entries must show us a Piece of Taos through video, animation, or a set of photographs.
- A Person. What makes them incredible or inspiring? This could be your fascinating uncle or awesome grandma or funny neighbor. Interview them about their hobby, their work, their passion — and then get some b-roll (illustrative images) to show them doing their thing. For example, you interview your cousin, known far-and-wide as the best gardener around. When she talks about planting flowers, let’s see her actually plant some!
- A Place. This could be a particular road or spot, a restaurant, a gathering space, a park, a school, a historic site, a landscape, a trail or stream or forest or sunset. Make your special place come alive through spoken memories: interview the people (or even yourself) who know just how magical this certain place is.
- A Thing. The objects all around us have so many stories. Make your family heirloom or historic artifact or musical instrument come alive.
Submission Deadline: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Submission Entry Forms Coming Soon
Submission Guidelines
1. You are highly encouraged (but not required) to work with TK1 staff or senior students in sharpening your idea, borrowing our camera gear, developing an interview guide, and even borrowing one of our laptops to do the editing. Want to talk about it? Email Pete: [email protected].
2. Diversity and respect are essential ingredients for our entries. We will immediately reject entries that are violent, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, gory, overly sexual or sensual… you get the idea. This is a family-friendly event. Keep your Piece of Taos PG.
3. We will not show every entry on the big screen. Entrance does not guarantee a showing. So don’t be disappointed and get to work crafting your masterpiece!
4. Video or animation entries cannot be longer than 5 minutes. Short pieces are welcome. If you have a piece longer than 5 minutes that you’re DYING to submit and simply cannot be shortened, contact Pete and we can talk about it.
5. Video entries should be in 4K or 1080p. Photographs and animation should be as high-resolution as possible. And YES you can shoot this with your phone, ideally by changing your camera settings to 4K. Just be really sure you record the audio in as high a quality as possible. Microphones are definitely recommended (and we have some mics here that can plug into your phone). So are tripods.
6. For photo entries, please submit no more than 5 total photos.
7. Change is inevitable! We reserve the right to modify any aspect of this Media Contest based on the quality and quantity of submissions.
8. This contest is for non-fiction pieces only (i.e. pieces of real Taos life). Don’t worry though: coming in May 2025 will be the TK1 Media Fest, where fiction is definitely encouraged. Stay tuned!
We’ll set up all Entry Forms and upload areas for your work soon enough. Any questions? Ask Pete: [email protected].