Lights, camera, action for Baker Lake student
A video by Baker Lake student Daniel Tapatai that highlights how to work safely in a power plant has won the 2024 Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission’s Focus on Safety Youth Video Contest.
The announcement was made on May 12.
Tapatai’s video, Power Plant Safety, highlights the importance of following site-specific rules for personal protective equipment and to work as a team to identify workplace hazards.
The video won Tapatai $1,000, with a matching prize of $1,000 for his sponsoring organization, Skills Canada Nunavut.
The previous year, Tapatai became the first grand prize winner from Nunavut for Take Me Outside, when he won the grand prize in the Grade 7 to 12 category of the 2023 student video contest for his three-minute video highlighting Baker Lake wildlife and scenery.
Tapatai, 17, said he was inspired to do the Power Plant Safety video because he worked at a power plant as a summer student in 2023, doing things such as meter reading, and assisting the power plant operators with tasks such as carrying boxes, oil changing and fuel dips.
The Grade 12 student said the plant had a safety book which he read before doing actual work there. Once he had finished the book in a couple of days, he then thought the plant would be a great place to do a workplace video.
“My uncle Jordan Konek (of Konek Productions) played a big role in sparking my interest in video,” said Tapatai.
“First off, I started by myself, going to take pictures and making them into slideshows. Then I thought I should move on and do actual videos. I’ve been doing videos now for the past four years.
“I also have a good buddy, Justin Tambogon, who’s based in Iqaluit right now. He’s been inspiring me to do some videos and has given me some good tips, as well.”
Tapatai said whether you’re making a short comedy film or a little documentary, the creative process is what sparks him to do more videos.
He said it’s pretty amazing what you can do with video and the combination of creativity and camera work is a powerful one for him.
“Camera work can be a lot of fun. If I’m out shooting at a hockey game, for example, and I capture a person scoring in the net and their celebration afterwards, that moment is both exciting and a lot of fun.
“Capturing that moment of the player’s happiness and everyone reacting to what has just happened also sparks my love for doing video.
“I also find the editing process to be a lot of fun, doing things such as colour grading and making the clips look more popped-out to the eye.”
Tapatai said he thinks it would be “quite fun” to make a career out of video and photography.
He said creating stories and films about lots of little places across the country, or the world for that matter, would certainly keep his interest for a very long time.
“I’ve done some videos on my home community, Baker Lake, and I hope to do more films across Nunavut, possibly Iqaluit and a number of small communities, focusing on, perhaps, the background or the history of the community.
“I’d also, of course, would someday love to travel the world and do films about the places I visit with a focus on the scenery.
“I’ll be graduating from high school in a couple of months, and I’m pretty excited about graduating and then taking a year off school to decide what career or school path I should take.
“I’m looking forward to some, hopefully, pretty exciting times ahead.”
Darrell Greer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Kivalliq News
