Emma Bull of Film Education presents George Ogunrinola with his prize 

A CONEL learner has won a national competition to raise awareness of the problem of illegal downloading and online piracy.

Aspiring Enfield film-maker George Ogunrinola, 19, scooped top prize in the ‘Be Creative’ competition, which was run by Film Education – a charity that promotes the use of film in education. George has been awarded a laptop computer and software for himself, as well as winning a package of four computers, software and photographic equipment for the College. His winning entry in the 15-19 category was a set of three film-style posters around the theme of music and video piracy.

Emma Bull, Secondary Education Adviser for Film Education, visited CONEL recently to present the prizes to George and to CONEL Vice Principal Jane O’Neill. Emma described George’s work as “incredibly professional and effective”. She added: “George’s exceptional and highly inventive campaign was obviously the product of a great deal of time, effort and creative thinking”. CONEL Principal Paul Head added his congratulations, saying “The judges were obviously very impressed with George’s work – and we are extremely proud of him”.

The competition invited entrants to design and create an original video, radio advert or poster - to promote legal downloads and discourage illegal filesharing. George, who is in the second year of a Media Production course at CONEL, explained how he had decided on the form of his winning entry: “Because I work with film and video all of the time on my course, I decided to do something different and produce a set of posters. I had written assignments about anti-piracy for my course, so I knew about the issues involved.”

George was originally encouraged to enter the competition by his tutor at CONEL, Maria Lopez. Maria, who teaches video production for the College, was thrilled with George’s success. She said: “George is a brilliant student, and a joy to teach – he’s a really nice young man. I know how hard he worked on this, and he absolutely deserves his prize. All of his tutors think he has a very bright future ahead of him.”

The next step for George might well take him a lot closer to Hollywood. He is currently applying for university places, and top of his list is the University of California, Los Angeles.