LAKE PLACID — Kids, get your cameras ready.

The Adirondack Film Society and Lake Placid Institute are hosting the Blue Line Young Filmmakers Project until June 1. The winners will have their films shown at the Lake Placid Film Festival in October of 2019. In addition, cash prizes will be awarded to the top three films: first prize $500, second prize $300 and third prize $200. All contestants will be given free passes to this year’s Lake Placid Film Festival.

“Part of our mission is to advance the art of film and film making in the Adirondack region,” said Fred Balzac, Film Society operations manager. “The opportunity to work directly with the Lake Placid Institute is worthwhile to us. To help stimulate an interest in filmmaking at the high school level is really great.”

LPI Executive Director Ashleah Mayberry said they recently sent letters to a number of schools in the Adirondack region to inform students about the project. She said the institute and film society are currently working on other methods to direct students to the competition.

There are a few rules for the contest. Firstly, it’s called the Young Filmmakers Project for a reason, so only high school students grades 9 through 12 can submit a movie. Contestants must attend school (public, private, home) in the Adirondack Park or any county, which is partially located in the Adirondack Park during the 2018-19 school year. Each team or soloist can submit only one entry.

Films are to be no longer than 10 minutes, and the file size can’t exceed 5 gigabytes. The film must also include a key as a prop, the line “I can’t remember the last time …” and at least a three-second shot of a Stewart’s Shop, interior or exterior. Contestants have to upload their short films to Vimeo. A link to the Vimeo page and an application sheet, which can be found at lakeplacidinstitute.org, should be emailed to bluelinefilmmakers@gmail.com.

The rules and criteria are similar to another one of the Film Society’s occasional projects, Sleepless in Lake Placid, for college film students.

“We’ve always had three elements that may vary,” Balzac said. “It’s just as a nice way to unify the films but at the same time offer maximum flexibility. We’re not limiting filmmakers by theme or genre, but it gives them a little something to work with. It’s kind of like parameters for when you write a sonnet. Knowing that is has to be 14 lines and written in iambic pentameter, is a little bit easier to work with than a prompt ‘write anything.'”