The final results for the contest regarding the Promotional Video for the KAIST Academic Cultural Complex (ACC) finally was announced on April 30. From mid-February to the end of March, participating students had to incorporate their personal experiences to promote the excellence of the ACC. Whichever video gained the most likes on YouTube in a set period would be the winner. Although there were many creative and impressive approaches in demonstrating the ACC, with 2,005 likes, Edwin Truman’s video won the Grand Prize.

Edwin Truman is an undergraduate student in his second year at the Department of Industrial Design. Although a regular schedule is difficult to maintain due to school work, Edwin shoots videos and uploads some to his YouTube channel, Teruman, as a hobby. In an interview with The KAIST Herald, Edwin stateed that he was inspired to participate in the competition thanks to his deep interest in film-making and his desire to further inform those unfamiliar with the ACC of the complex, as well as the 500,000 KRW prize.

Certainly, there were many other outstanding videos entries. In fact, many participants even covered places in the ACC that Edwin hadn’t. However, his video uniquely uses a first person perspective. Edwin explained this artistic choice by emphasizing his thought that “it would be interesting for the viewer to watch it in a first person view so that they could engage more.” Moreover, since the winner of the competition is determined by the number of likes, he took one more step by widely promoting his work on social media.

Despite his success, Edwin stated that he did not have a lot of time to edit and that he is still unsatisfied with some parts of the video. Although his schedule is getting tighter every year, he demonstrated his adamant interest in film-making: “I would love to do a similar project like this [in the future] because the whole process was really fun, and when you shoot with your friends, I think it can be a good hang-out.”

Following Truman’s win, Team Fantastic Trio and Kunduz Baryktabasova were awarded the Excellence Award for their work, with 1,758 and 944 likes, respectively.