MANY teens watching the latest blockbuster movies feel inspired enough to want to follow in the footsteps of Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.

Shooting for that dream is no longer just a fantasy as several competitions launched in recent years allow students to take that first step to showcase their ability.

Take the example of Jurong Junior College student Ong Zheng Bao.

He took part in an animation-movie contest called N.E.mation, open to students from secondary schools and junior colleges.

The brainchild of the Central National Education Office and animation company Animagine, it was started in 2006 to also help promote Total Defence.

In the third week of last November, participants attended a movie-making workshop at the National Institute of Education before they got down to business and submitted their works the following month.

They had to use clay figurines as the main medium to tell a story.

Overcoming hurdles like malfunctioning lighting equipment and often skipping meals, Zheng Bao's team won the champions trophy last year.

They received more than $10,000 worth of prizes, including animation software and a trip to the Pixar Animation Studios in California in June.

They had to roll up their sleeves to do the literally dirty work of making the sculptures. Said co-director Ng Wei Lun: 'The construction of the tank sculpture took more than three days but we enjoyed ourselves.'

Their two-minute movie clip has been screened on TVMobile and Channel 5 since last month, along with the entries from nine other finalists.

Zheng Bao said with a grin: 'We can show the whole country what the four of us think about Total Defence in a fun way.'

For youths more focused on making longer movies, there's the Canon High Definition (HD) Film Festival to aim for.

Organised by technology giant Canon Singapore, it was created in 2004 to give a leg-up to budding film-makers.

Some 2,500 youths took part last year.

Media Development Authority director Pam Hu said that the agency is happy to support the fest as it recognises that 'it has brought film-making closer to Singaporeans'.

Previously, students had to produce a 15-minute work. This was reduced last year to three minutes to encourage more people to take part.

Nanyang Technological University mass communications student Lim Chee Harn, 23, was the director of the winning team which produced the movie Remorse.

It is about a man who gets Aids from extra-marital sex and has to face the consequences.

'Contrary to what most people believe, the shooting is actually not as tough as the editing,' he said.

His team shot the movie in about two days but took more than a week to edit it.

Like any good director, he feels that there is room for improvement. He said: 'We should have done more research into Aids and how the sufferers think. Then we could have portrayed the emotions of our main character even more realistically.'

His team received $3,000 worth of product vouchers from Canon and a trophy.

Another contest - the School Digital Media Awards, previously known as the School Video Awards - is probably the largest of its kind.

Some 446 entries were received from primary and secondary schools and junior colleges last year.

Nineteen-year-old Timothy Tay was part of a six-member team from Victoria Junior College that clinched the Gold Award.

The team's 10-minute piece, The Scar, revolved around the love of a grandfather and how his grandson realised it only after his death.

'We felt the reason we won is probably because the plot had moral gravity,' said the teen, who co-produced the movie.

The team received a trophy and other prizes, including a digital camera and movie-making software.

One lesson he learnt: 'We had a tough time rushing before the deadline and we could have been less stressed had we planned it out more carefully.'

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Mar 16, 2008.