LSMedia or Liverpool student media at liverpoolstudentmedia.com is a brand new website launched by the University of Liverpool's students to promote and support talented Liverpool student's creative written, visual or radio content.

Yesterday saw the premiere of the Environment agency's first ever short film competition, entitled Tomorrow's World. It is part of their pledge to create a better place by publicising important messages on climate change to the business leaders of tomorrow. Students from the North West were given the chance to have to say on this topic whilst demonstrating their talent.

A group from Liverpool John Moores were one of the winners of the competition, fighting off competition from students from other universities across the region. Emily Webber, Samantha Pickles, Jen Robinson, Karen Turley and Sarah Butler produced a short film on water efficiency titled 'Human after all.' The winning entry has used a unique technique using performance capture technology where actors act out the movements of the character being animated, which is then transformed into a computer generated image. Celebrity Big Brother contestants, Terry Christian and Coolio, also provided voiceovers for this film, following their heated debate in the big brother house on climate change.

Students were given the brief of capturing some of the environmental issues facing us today, focusing on; Saving the valuable resource of water, at home and work; and what we can do to manage flooding. Another group from John Moores where also shortlisted in the competition with their short film called 'Don't Wash Our World Away.' The films were judged by a panel of experts from the film and TV industry including the creator of Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks, Phil Redmond; and environment ambassadors who praised all the entries for their imaginative approach to the serious messages in the briefs.

The film premiered at an awards evening in Manchester on the 28th April and will be used as part of the Environment agency's viral campaign to raise awareness about environmental issues and help change behaviours.

In an interview with Suzanne Hughes who is the Regional Communications Director for the Environment Agency she discussed the reasons for such a competition. She stated how they wanted to talk to young people about climate change and how we can change it. To help them do that they invited all North West Universities to enter to see “students’ perspective” on the issue. Over 70 entries were received in total with all groups being of a high standard and “fully understanding the messages”.

All the talk at the moment is about how we can change things and help stop climate change, but the Environment Agency chose the water and flooding orientated briefs to address that climate change has already started with us witnessing “extreme weather patterns.” We need to look at what we can do to help ourselves, by “not wasting water” and adapting the way we live.

After the launch the winners films will be going on youtube to start a viral campaign. Following this they will be used in ongoing campaigns including the ability to sign up for flood warnings to help stop any preventable damage.

The winning short films can be viewed below, or at http://www.tomorrowsworldcompetition.com.

For more information on the work of the Environment Agency please go to http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/

Paul Gardner