G-Technology Driven Creativity Competition USA 2012 Gala Opening Event & Gallery Exhibition

G-TECHNOLOGY™ ANNOUNCES PEOPLE’S CHOICE AND CATEGORY WINNERS FOR ITS 2012 ‘DRIVEN CREATIVITY’ COMPETITION 

G-Technology Continues to Support and Celebrate Aspiring and Professional Content Creators in Film, Photography, Music and Animation; The Overall Competition Winner will be Announced on November 5 with a Celebration and Launch of a Public Gallery Exhibit in New York City, Nov 7-11  

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 12, 2012 - 

As developers of innovative storage solutions for those looking to push creativity beyond the limits, G-Technology is pleased to announce the category and people’s choice winners of its first annual Driven Creativity Competition 2012. The Driven Creativity Competition 2012, which ran from June 19 to Sept. 24, 2012, was open to amateur and professional photographers, filmmakers, animators and musicians in the United States.With hundreds of entries from passionate and talented artists, G-Technology is proud to honor their unique work and talent not just for its aesthetic qualities, but for the dedication, innovation and drive that went into creating it. The amateur and professional category winners, as well as the people’s choice and GoPro® Active winners include: Amateur Category Winners: •   Short Film – “Regret” by Nate Powers. This short film is about Jonathan Bailey, who lives in continuous regret of his past, until he gets an opportunity to change it. •   Photography – “Parking Lot Ferris Wheel - Chapel Hill Mall” by Cheryl A. Townsend. Using an Apple® iPod®, Townsend captured a Ferris wheel being set up in a mall parking lot and used a “grunge” application in post production to create a surreal and mystical effect.•   Animation – “The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete” by Uri Lotan. Using clever pie puns, jokes and characters, this witty pie western was expertly executed and directed.•   Music – “Lost World” by Jonathan Martinez. This song was inspired by a mythical Greek screen play that Martinez and a friend wrote, describing a journey through the darkest regions of your mind and only through accepting the past and moving onto happiness in your life can the main character escape. Professional Category Winners: •   Short Film – “Come Follow Me” by Devon Dresback. This film is about a teacher that abandons her school teachings, for a day, to inspire her students with a lesson close to her heart.•   Photography – “The Power of Inner Peace - Healthy Body & Mind” by Richwell Correa. This photo represents the elegance of a healthy fit body in a natural state; by using creative lighting to capture the intensity and the calmness simultaneously.•   Animation – “Bottle” by Kirsten Lepore.  Animated on location at a beach, in the snow and underwater, this stop-motion short details a transoceanic conversation between two characters via objects in a bottle.•   Music – “Post-Apocalyptic Messenger” by Ozie C. Cargile II. This orchestral suite was inspired by a collaborative project on hitRECord.org where two time-travelers are warned about the apocalyptic fate of mankind by a seductive cyborg from the future. The GoPro® Active category winner went to “Joe Stone’s 2012 Adaptive Adventures” by Joe Stone. This is a short film about how Stone is reinventing his life after becoming a C7 quadriplegic, and is a story of hope and inspiration that no matter what challenges or obstacles people encounter, the joy of experiencing life, can make it worth living. Receiving 486 online votes, the People’s Choice award went to Sten Muchow. His photograph titled, “Misty Boulders” captures sunset off the majestic coast of Portugal, one of his favourite places for both shooting and surfing. “The success of our G-Technology brand comes from the dedicated support of the creative community as they have helped guide and inspire our product line as well as us,” said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager, HGST Branded Business. “Congratulations to all of the category and people’s choice winners. Our Driven Creativity awards competition is a way for us to give back to the creative community and celebrate their profession and passion.” The Exhibition & Gala At a special gala and exhibition in New York City on November 7-11, G-Technology will be celebrating and showcasing the creative work of all category winners and runners-up and will display a selection of shortlisted entries. Open to the public, the event will take place at Gallery 69, a quaint gallery located in the heart of Tribeca, which will bring together the successful entrants, the competition judges, G-Technology representatives and members of the press. The Gala Opening Event will be held on November 7th from 6pm-9pm ET. Please RSVP tohttp://gtechnyc.eventbrite.com. The Prizes The category winners will receive a cutting-edge 4TB G-DRIVE™, the high-performance, professional external hard drive for demanding A/V applications. The category runners-up will receive an ultra stylish and portable 1TB G-DRIVE mobile external storage solution, and the people’s choice winner will receive an innovative G-CONNECT™ wireless storage solution. The GoPro category winner will receive a 2TB G-DRIVE as well as a GoPro camera, allowing them to take their filming to a whole new level. The runner-up in this category will receive a G-DRIVE mobile 500GB as well as a GoPro camera.  Click here to view all of the category winners and runners-up. The overall winner, which will be announced on November 5, will win an 8TB G-RAID with Thunderbolt and a grand prize of $5,000 to help fund their next project. The Driven Creativity Competition is designed to recognize established and up-and-coming talent, with all entrants having an equal chance of winning, regardless of size and budget within each category. A jury panel of G-Technology’s expert G-TEAM members and industry professionals judged the shortlist of candidates to decide the winners and runners-up in each category; basing their decisions on the uniqueness, quality, creativity and the resourcefulness that went into achieving the end result of each category winning entry.  The G-Technology Driven Creativity judges included DJ 2ndNature, Alex Buono, Clifton Collins Jr., Jeremy Cowart, Lucas Gilman,Ken Kaminesky, Vincent Laforet and MC Lars. Stay connected with G-Technology: G-Technology drives are engineered specifically to meet the needs of the content creation and Apple Mac communities, including heavy users of multimedia content, Final Cut Pro® digital audio/video specialists and other pre/post production professionals. From portable drives to ultra-fast, multi-drive RAID storage, G-Technology’s USB, FireWire®, eSATA, SAS and wireless storage solutions support virtually all levels of A/V production and can be found in post-production facilities worldwide. Keep updated with further news about the gallery exhibition and G-Technology, by connecting to G-Technology’s social network channels: Tumblr®: G-TechnologyFacebook®: G-TechnologyTwitter®: @GTechStorageYouTube®: GTechStorage  About HGST HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise‐class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high‐value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website athttp://www.hgst.com.  

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