Mike Humphries "Downtown 33," a story about downtown nuisance crime, used good natural sound and shot selection to pace the story well. The editor also used graphics by effectively overlaying them onto the "background" of many of the scenes shot by the photographer. It worked as a very effective storytelling tool.  A very well-done 1st place entry.
 
"Storybook Romance" takes the viewer to Verona, Italy, to visit the legendary balcony of Romeo and Juliet. The editor made great use of music and natural sound to pace the story and also inserted video from the story "into" a "Romeo and Juliet" book, making it appear that the shots were illustrations. Transitions that turned video into a watercolor effect also helped create a beautiful mood throughout the piece.
 
In "House of Correction," the editor made effective use of text and layering to help tell the story of an apparently corrupt prison. Combined with the natural sound and seamless editing, it helped to make the story very informative and compelling to watch.
 
"Block E" is similar to "Downtown 33" in that it effectively used graphics overlaid onto video backgrounds to provide statistics and details for a story about downtown crime. This piece moved well, with plenty of natural sound and good shot selection.

Stephanie Ottjepka--"Downtown 33" was highly stylized with a fresh approach to showing crime
stats. The crime stats appeared as text on sidewalks and sides of buildings.
This worked well in a story about crime in the city. I also really liked the
photos of the 33 most arrested over the bush. This piece also had great
pacing, which the text and shot changes followed.

"Storybook Romance" had another pleasant style with a purpose that helped
the story. The romance was carried by an effect of turning video landscapes
into paintings, soft-edged video resized to fit into pages of a book, and
nice transitions of speed changes and dissolves. All of the effects were
polished and did not distract from the story.

"House of Correction" had many effects that it used, throughout all of which
helped advance the story. The text that was used clean, moved well, and
helped the story. There were other effects used like spotlighting, a radial
light effect, and blurring, and none of these were gaudy.