Two groups of Sharon High School students have received applause for their short films.

Sharon High won awards at both the Hockomock Film Festival and the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center's anti-bullying public service announcement contest recently.

At the Hockomock festival, junior Samantha Kaplan won third place in the documentary category for "Pursuing a Dream." Seniors Tony Simonetti, Stephanie Berenson and Zack Ruboy earned honorable mention for "Cody Adams, Episode 1: The Serial Speller."

Simonetti and Berenson also earned awards presented for the first time at the Hockomock festival: Simonetti for Hockomock Achievement and Berenson for Best Actress.

Meanhile, in the MARC anti-bullying contest, sophomores Tyler Drisko and Brandy Blaise won third place for "The Worst Day Ever." Sophomores Matt Kravitsky and Sai Reddivari earned honorable mention for "Have You Ever Felt."

The students created the films as projects for MaryAnn Janosko's classes.

Kaplan says her video was about her gymnastics experiences.

"All throughout the video, I would talk about gymnastics, but also say what I've learned and what I've gotten from the sport," explains Kaplan, a member of the Eagles gymnastics team.

Simonetti says the achievement award he received was for placing first two years ago and third last year in addition to honorable mention this year.

"It's an honor. It's good to have the recognition for all the work that I've put in on all the different projects," says Simonetti, who plans to major in film at Emerson College this fall.

Berenson says the screening of the finalists' videos was educational.

"It taught me a lot of different techniques," she says.

"Some people used certain video techniques different ways than I would've thought to use. It was a great learing experience to see other people's work."

In the anti-bullying video contest, Drisko says the PSA he and Blaise made shows a boy asking a girl to a movie, before another boy pushes and insults him.

"We were showing that that's a way of how people get bullied," he says.

The boy then goes home, where the audience sees him cope with the bullying.

"You see a lot of bullying. You don't necessarily see the person's reaction when they go home," Blaise says.

Reddivari and Kravitsky also tried to show a different perspective on bullying through "Have You Ever Felt."

"We would say, 'Have you ever felt?' and then describve a situation that a kid might be in, and then we would show that situation," Reddivari says.

Reddivari says he hopes kids who see the PSA understand "that bullying can come in all kinds of forms, and that you shouldn't disregard your actions as not being bullying just because they don't seem all that extreme."