A team of four Aberdeenshire school pupils wowed their teachers and charity figureheads with a hard-hitting short film about eating disorders – shot using mobile phones.
Portlethen Academy second year students Cara Bremner, Jasmine Collett, Craig McLennan and Kirsty Ross wrote, directed and starred in the project – produced for the Scottish Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI).
The group focused on the work of the North East Eating Disorders Service (Needs) and won £3,000 which they donated to the organisation yesterday.
The pupils were crowned the school’s winners of the Scotland-wide YPI – which encourages youngsters to research current social issues and a local charity and produce a presentation from their findings.
The film formed part of the students’ religious, moral and philosophical studies (RMPS) course work and honed in on the true story of a girl suffering from an eating condition.
Bosses at Needs were so impressed they have asked for permission to use it as a learning resource.
The pupils’ RMPS teacher, Ian Cunningham, said: “It is an initiative we have been involved for a number of years at the academy. The standard just keeps on getting better and better. The film was fantastic.
“Every year the pupils have to do some research into different needs and issues in the local area.
“All the presentations were different, we asked them to be creative and imaginative. Some came up with a drama presentation, others wrote a song, this group decided to do the film.
The three girls acted and Craig filmed it all
“One of our judges initially thought it was professionally made, and all the filming was done on their I-phones.”