Four shooting stars

Many teenagers are creative in the way they decorate their mobile phones and electronic gadgets, but four Hong Kong students used their phones and their imaginations to win the Discover and Innovate You 'Dream Life 28' Video and Image Competition.

City University, which is celebrating its 28th anniversary this year, asked Hong Kong students in Form Four to Form Seven to produce imaginative photo or video entries featuring the number 28.

Female students celebrated a clean sweep of the top two prizes ahead of their rival male competitors.

Jordyn Lai Lok-yi, 18, of Tuen Mun Government Secondary School, made a two-minute film, Life?, looking ahead to her life at the age of 28.

It won the individual film shooting and computer animation category.

She also interviewed two 28-year-old women, who talked about their hopes of being married, and having a good job with a stable income.

At 28, Jordyn imagines herself working to help improve the lives of the 'unsung heroes' in her community - elderly people who work hard for little reward.

'Being a resident of Tuen Mun I discovered there are lots of elderly people who are very poor,' she says.

'They struggle to make a living by collecting and selling rubbish on the streets. This is heartbreaking.

'Through my video, I hope to raise people's awareness about the need to care for, and appreciate, the elderly ... They're heroes to me.'

She says many people do not worry about the problems of the poor, so she hopes her film can change people's minds.

Meanwhile, three other students - Margaret Ip Tuen-shun, 18, Yannes Yeung Lok-yan, 14, and Smiley Wong, 15, of Pooi To Middle School, in Kowloon City - won the competition's 2Dartwork category.

They produced an entry featuring 28 photographs of their school's 'hidden' attractions.

'We used our phone cameras to take the pictures because they are the tools that we're most familiar with,' says Yannes, a Form Three student.

'But, we didn't use phone applications to edit the photos. We created our own effects so we could present things how we wanted.'

The team posed as models in the photos, but were shown only from behind, to emphasise the theme of their entry - 'Looking back to High School'.

Ip says: 'Being in secondary school is probably the most precious time in our lives. Time flies in a blink of an eye and, therefore, we wanted to cherish these moments with our teachers and schoolmates.'

Smiley adds: 'We had a lot of fun discussing so many different ideas of how to produce our entry. We only agreed on one thing - the need to stick to the subjects we photographed.'