KWN European Awards...in Hamburg!! 18th - 20th May

This trip was beyond unreal! There had been some extremely brief talk about the possibility of me going to Hamburg for the KWN European Awards as the Panasonic UK representative, but it was such a brief mention, that I didn't think it would at all actually happen!

I got into the office on Monday, a couple of weeks before the awards, and checked into my inbox - I had about 10 emails asking me when I was going to arrange the flights to Hamburg, including flights for myself! Eh??

I checked with the head of Brand Communications (who works closely with the KWN programme) and, sure enough, I had been selected! Prior to take-off, I had to organise flights and accommodation for myself and the teacher and students from Testbourne School. Cue a bit of confusion about rooms, who was staying where, etc, and all the arrangements were made... We were off to Hamburg!

I met the teacher and the four students selected from the Testbourne team at Heathrow airport on the afternoon of Wednesday 18th. They were all very excited to be there! Previous KWN teams from Testbourne have got quite far in the competition and had the opportunity to travel to earlier award ceremony locations, but the children I travelled with (Kathy, Steph, Sam and Jake) had never been part of the KWN programme, so they were all just as excited as I was!

The flight was a bit scary - Kathy and I were both a bit apprehensive as neither of us had travelled for quite a while, but everything went without a hitch (or too much turbulence)! We checked into our hotel, which was based right in the centre of Hamburg, and went out for dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant and it was absolutely amazing! This picture doesn't really do the restaurant justice, but it'll give you some idea of what the place was like...

Ok, so that picture wasn't too excellent, but we were sat in the corner and it was tricky to fit all the 'scenery' into one shot! What I will say is... Get out your laderhosen! It really was very traditional and we decided to go all out and have the Bavarian dishes on offer. I had obatzer (which is basically fried cheese, mashed up with cheese and rolled into balls. So, cheese balls) with different meats. I think I accidentally ordered for 2 people too, the plate was huge! Not something I'll be trying again... The others had shnitzel and bratwurst and, whilst it was great to sample the local delicacies, I think we will all be sticking with our English roast dinners from now on! We did, of course, all have apfel strudel for dessert - now, that was delish!

We then went back to our hotel for some rest as, according to my carefully-guarded printout of the schedule, the next day was going to be a very busy one...

We checked out of the hotel the next morning, to check into where everyone else was staying, and met all of the teams, teachers and Panasonic representatives from the other countries. We were then whisked off to Studio Hamburg, a large recording studio responsible for some of the bizarre talkshows we saw back in our hotel rooms. We had a welcome lunch and all of the children introduced themselves then stuffed their faces with burgers and ice cream (I was also guilty of gluttony, the burgers were amazing!). Then, it was time for the workshops - the children were there to create a 5-minute promotional film for KWN, with the help of 3 industry professionals.

After a tour of the different studios (the green room, the lighting room, etc), the children were split into groups to create different aspects of the film. Kathy was put into the group looking at the filming and acted as a cocktail waitress in a bar; Sam tried his hand at dubbing and produced a great voiceover for some parts of the film; and Steph and Jake were in my group and acted as the anchors of the film's news report, so they got to play a really major part - go Team UK! I was in the control room and helped to put the right pictures on the screen as Steph and Jake ran through their scripts, which was really fun to do! I thought I'd escaped the camera, but the crew came in to do a very short snippet on the 'behind-the-scenes' team - very embarrassing. So yes, I'm on a KWN promotional film somewhere...

After a long day at putting our cinematic skills to the test, we all went back to our hotel to rest before the Welcome Dinner at an Italian restaurant. The team from Panasonic Europe gave a speech at the end to congratulate the children for getting to such a late stage of the competition and, as the main KWN awards ceremony was going to be held in a 1920s movie theatre the next day, the children were given goody bags with bits and pieces to accessorise their formal outfits with - I'm talking feather boas, trilby hats, canes...the lot!

The next morning, I took the Testbourne team and their teacher on a short siteseeing trip around the lovely city of Hamburg (short, because it rained - a lot - and also, I had no idea where I was actually going!). We then went back to the hotel to change into our formalwear and were taken to Passage Kino, the movie theatre, which was really stunning!

After a short buffet lunch, we collected our KWN-branded popcorn boxes and settled down into our seats in the theatre.

Wilson Solano from PME (Panasonic Marketing Europe) began the ceremony with a speech, reminding those in attendance of how proud they should be to have got so far in the competition and that coming together to celebrate their film entries was of enormous importance. Mr Abadie, the head of Panasonic Europe, also spoke a few words to congratulate the KWN teams and commercial producer Jan Brockmann told them how hard they would need to work should they aspire to become professional film makers, but they were now on their way!

Each school introduced their film before it was screened, giving a short insight into the messages behind their entries.

This was the first time the schools had been able to see the competing films and everyone was very impressed with the high standard. The films showed a great improvement on the use of the video production technology compared to previous years and members of the judging panel reiterated how hard the judging process had been.

After the screenings, the awards were announced as follows:

• Rudolf Dilong Primary School from Trstena, Slovakia, won the KWN 2011 European Award for its film, entitled "Do not destroy but save". It was also presented with the award for Best Visual Effects.












• Testbourne Community School from the UK was awarded Best Story for its video "B is for Apple".







• Max-Planck Gymnasium from Germany was awarded Best Acting for its film "James Bondy - Dr Kill".







• Grammar School No. 29 from Poland was awarded Best Cinematography for its film "The third life of a tree."







• Secondary Modern School Golling from Austria was awarded Best Reporting for its video "Powerlines through environmentally protected areas. Pupils inform themselves!"






• Angel Primary School from the Czech Republic was awarded Best Environmental Message for its video "From the waters of life".






• Ruetihof from Switzerland was awarded best Citizenship for its film "Best friends from all over the world."






• Centro Salesiani Don Bosco from Italy was awarded Best Music for its video, entitled "Flashback".

The two days over which the workshop activities and the awards ceremony took place were a great success. The children got to make new friends from schools from all over Europe and were sad to say goodbye to each other after the ceremony. Everyone who attended the ceremony agreed that Kid Witness News is a fantastic programme for schools to get involved in and saw that the students took a lot from the event, having gained a large amount of film-making knowledge and experience.