Background

Since the first International Space Apps Challenge in 2012, thousands of participants from hundreds of locations have developed unique and inspiring solutions for NASA challenges. Participants like YOU come together for a weekend full of excitement, storytelling, and fantastic multi-disciplinary science and engineering. We want to hear your sensational stories!! Whether it’s preparing for and traveling to the event location, making friends and connections at the hackathon, or developing a winning solution – share your memorable Space Apps experiences with the rest of the world!

Your challenge is to produce a five-minute (or less) documentary of NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge and what it means to you.

For this challenge, you and your creative team may choose to cover:

• The mysteries of Earth and space that you have learned about through Space Apps
• Your local event where you follow one team, or all teams
• Particular solutions and the stories behind them
• The heroes behind the scenes – how local hosts lead and bring an event together
• The history of Space Apps, previous teams or solutions, or anything from the Space Apps past that has inspired you
• Any aspect of the hackathon that you find interesting

Document the experience in a creative film. Make sure to include as much material as possible when you upload or embed your content into your project page (final edit of your film, scripts, cast and crew listing, equipment list, storyboards, etc.).

Potential Considerations

Since your team may only have a short amount of time to produce and edit your film, you might divide and conquer the tasks ahead of you, including script writing, directing, acting, interviewing guest speakers, adding music, editing, managing lighting, sound, serving as artist, or production assistant etc.

Consider what equipment your team might need to produce your film, such as audio/video recorders, microphones, and lighting. A modern smart phone should be able to perform all of these functions, but think about how you can increase production quality with specialized equipment. If your team does not already have specialized equipment, your team may be able to collaborate with others to provide it.

Keep in mind is that sound is often considered the most important component of a video. An audience can forgive poor video quality, but hardly forgive poor audio quality.

Consult resources available on the internet to help you plan and produce a short film. For example, there are sites with tools that allow 3D modeling and animation, audio recording, and editing, and/or there are sites that guide you through the process of going from idea to researching, outlining, making a shot list, and writing a script.

If chosen as a Global Award finalist, think about how the footage could be edited in order to create a trailer to submit as your 30-second video entry.