Hay River (May 17/04) - A teenager sits typing at a keyboard when the screen goes blank.

He crawls underneath the desk and reaches for a tangled mess of wires and cables. The last thing you see is his head hitting the underside of the desk as he's hit by a jolt of electricity.

That was Kelvin Redvers and Greg Steen's entry in this year's Workers Compensation Board student video competition. The WCB asked students to make a video, one minute long or less, about workplace safety with the theme "What if you couldn't...?"

Students from two high schools took the top three spots in the territory-wide contest.

Last week a panel of eight judges reviewed the entries from schools in Hay River, Yellowknife and Fort Smith.

First place went to Ryan Chenkie and Seamus Braden of Sir John Franklin high school in Yellowknife. Redvers and Steen of Hay River took second place. Morgan Barrett, also from Sir John Franklin, took third.

Ryan Uchman, Redvers and Steen's film instructor, wasn't surprised at his students' placement. Last year, Redvers and Steen won the contest.

Uchman said students from the program have entered a variety of film festivals, and have placed first in almost every one.

He also wasn't surprised the top spot this year went to Sir John Franklin high school.

"It tends to go back and forth," he said.

Sir John Franklin high school also has a media studies program. For the past two years Sir John Franklin students have taken the top spot in a national anti-racism video contest.

Principal Anne-Mieke Cameron said contest wins beget more contest wins, partly because of the prizes. In the past, Sir John Franklin students have won four digital video cameras as well as a $5,000 editing suite.

But an editing suite doesn't put an award winning video together by itself. Uchman said students not only need the tools, they need to know how to use them to tell a story.

"I tell them the lens is an eye," he said.

"There has to be a reason behind every shot. Everything has to represent something."