Now in its third year, the Office of International Activities Destination BU Video Challenge has drawn thousands of views from around the world as our outstanding international students share their remarkable journeys with us. Now it’s your chance to follow in the footsteps of last year’s winners Chisom Okoro and Janine Campbell.

The Destination BU Video Challenge is your opportunity to:

• promote an understanding of the challenges international students overcome and the energy and eagerness they bring
• showcase international student* travel to Brandon
• engage with the broader BU community and Brandon/Westman region
• Win a share of $1,000 in prizes to help pay for your education!

* eligibility open to enrolled Brandon University international students

Project Details

We want students to create a series of short videos documenting their departure from home, their travel, their arrival in Canada, and their arrival at BU. Students should use their preferred social media to record and share these videos in the way that is the most natural for them. Any social media is okay (Facebook Reels, Instagram Stories, or Tik Tok are preferred). Still photos or photos with animated effects are okay – so long as they can be shared in the same format and tell part of the same story. Ideally, the videos share what you are doing, as well as how you are feeling (excited, nervous, anxious, eager).

Videos should include:

• Departure from home (a bit about your home, final family meal, packing, saying goodbyes, travel to airport, etc.)
• Travel (highlight length of travel, departing, transit, and arrival airports, takeoffs and landing, what do you do on the plane?)
• Arrival in Canada (what’s different from home? what’s the same?)
• Arrival at BU (what are your experiences, what are you looking forward to? Prefer: include a shot of you at the bobcat statue in the courtyard)

Deadline

Deadline for video submissions is September 17, 2023.

Prizes

This year we have two grand prizes! $500 for the video that chosen as the best through our online ballot, and $500 for the video chosen as the best by our selection committee.

Submission Requirements

• Total length of videos – maximum 4 minutes
• Upload all videos from your social media posts in one submission to wetransfer.com with the following details:
  • Email to – international@brandonu.ca
  • Your email – make sure to use your BU email address
  • Title – Destination BU video challenge
  • Message – indicate your name and student number
  • Click the Transfer button to send files

Copyright

Canadian law protects all original creative works under the Copyright Act. Simply put, this means that you must have permission to use any images, audio or video that were created by someone else in your Destination BU Video (learn about copyright). If your video contains copyright material, you will be asked to change it.

Free Image, Video, and Audio Resources

The University of Waterloo Centre for Extended Learning Open Resource Repository has an excellent list of of sources for free images, video, and audio to use in your project. Please make sure to check the Special Considerations column (copyright, usage restrictions, etc.) to ensure you meet each resource’s specific terms.

Judging

The Office of International Activities will work with the Communications Office to review videos for appropriateness (explicit language or graphic imagery may be disqualified) and to share videos with the community. One winner will be based on online votes, and the other will be decided based on the votes of our selection committee.

Did you enter last time?

No problem! We’d love to see a new video with your latest journey! Please note, however, that previous prize winners are ineligible to win again.