Serling video fest touted to western N.Y. students
George Basler, Staff Writer
Binghamton Press/Sun Bulletin, November, 2002

BINGHAMTON -- Lawrence Kassan has been called a persistent preacher of the gospel of video.  Over the past seven years, the director of special projects for the Binghamton City School District has actively promoted the Rod Serling Video Festival, which is his brainchild. He's seen the festival grow from a Broome County event to a statewide contest.

Kassan took another promotional step Monday, using the new distance learning classroom at Binghamton High School to broadcast information sessions about the festival to students in high schools across western New York.

His goal is to get quality entries from that part of the state, Kassan said.

The Rod Serling Video Festival promotes the creative use of video technology. Students, from kindergartners through seniors in high school, can enter by producing a video up to five minutes in length. Prizes are awarded in various categories, including best of show, best of show for grade-school students, best directing, best animation and best special effects.

About 100 students entered last year's contest -- half from the Broome County region and half from other parts of the state, including Westchester County and the Hudson Valley, Kassan said.

But not many students from western New York have entered in past years, he said.

Kassan used the Broome-Tioga Board of Educational Services' Distance Learning Network to broadcast to the Erie II-Cattaraugus-Chautauqua BOCES, which then relayed the sessions to classes in high schools throughout western New York.

This was the first time the Binghamton school district used the distance learning room for a broadcast outside the Broome and Tioga county area.

Kassan told the western New York students about the contest and showed winning videos from past years.  The video production class at Chautauqua Lake High School was watching.

"It's fun to work with this kind of technology," said Justin Cory, 17, a senior at Chautauqua Lake High School.   Several of the students said they were impressed by the videos Kassan showed.

"(But) we can do better," said Zack Swank, 16, a junior at Chautauqua Lake, drawing laughs.

Kassan said he's looking for hundreds of entries from across the state this year. Ultimately, he'd like to take the contest national, although at this point he's not ready to handle the thousands of entries that a national contest could attract.