Coming soon to a theater near you Coming soon to a theater near you (May 21, 2004)

Teens produce public service announcements
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

Don't drink and drive.

Buckle up.

Who can get these messages across to teens better than teens themselves?

Such was the reasoning of Community Services Officer Lisa Mezzetti when she approached the Foothill High School video class about filming public service announcements to be aired at Hacienda Crossings theaters this summer.

The students in Scott Sears' video production class tackled the project with gusto, working around spring break schedules and coping with the challenges of lighting, dated equipment and limited resources. Not to mention tightening the footage into 15 seconds.

"There were real deadlines," said Sears, "and a contract."

The journalism class helped write the public service announcements, and students from the drama class acted in them.

Video student Carol Easter found the directing to be a challenge. "It was hard letting the actors know what I had in mind," she said. "And the angles were hard."

"We shot three or four minutes of angles in a car," said Purna Venkataraman, recalling how they filmed teens buckling their seatbelts - again and again and again.

"We had 20 minutes of film, shot from all angles," said Carol. "When we got it down to 15 seconds, we were very pleased."

Mark McDowell said cropping the footage to 45 seconds was fairly easy, but cutting out the last 30 seconds was difficult. "We trimmed the video and left the audio," he said. "We still got everything across."

"The hardest part was how much of the clip to show and still get the point across," added Trevor Bormann.

Two of the videos deal with teen drinking and driving. One starts with four friends partying, who then get in a guy's car to go visit another friend. It ends with the driver slamming on the brakes as he approaches children playing in the street, with the written message: "Drunk driving affects everyone."

The other video shows a teen stumbling toward his car in the dark, after leaving a party. It ends with some grim statistics. The team used back yard floodlights to shoot the scene, in the absence of professional lights.

"Our six editing bays and five cameras are not the best," said teacher Sears. "It was a chance to come up with solutions and to learn."

The two seatbelt videos also convey their message concisely. One shows belts being fastened - click, click, click, click - then students saying "Buckle up" in Japanese and Spanish. It ends with the written words: "Many languages, one concept, buckle up."

The other seatbelt message is humorous as two lovely girls pursue a car that has a seatbelt dangling out the drivers' side. The driver has a happy smile on his face, as he says, "Thanks, ladies" - and buckles up. "Friends help friends remember to buckle their seatbelts" is the message.

"We had to put out something that was going to appeal to the audience," said Cristen Andrews, who worked on the seatbelt videos.

CTV Channel 30 is also going to air the messages, but it needs them to be 30 seconds. So it's back to the editing bays for the video students. McDowell said he will add back the 30 seconds he cut from his video, to make it 45 seconds, and tighten from there. "Now we have more time to get our point across," he said, obviously pleased with the prospect.

Sears said the video class is in its third year at Foothill, and next year there will be two periods. "We're still developing the program," he said. "This year the students were selected, but that's being developed. I'd like to see an entry level and an advanced level."

The students also filmed and edited a senior highlights video, and they produce five-minute bulletins that are broadcast throughout the campus three days a week.

"It's life learning, not just some facts," said Sears. "I want them to enjoy the journey of learning. They are students in a digital age, and the media is more prominent in their lives."

Sears said some students take the class to meet their visual performing arts requirement to apply to California State Universities and the University of California. Others take it because they are interested in it as a hobby. A third group is students who know they want to pursue a career in the media and production.

The public service announcements will be a boon to any resume, he noted. The funding for the program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. The cost to air them at Hacienda Crossings is $3,000, said Community Officer Mezzetti, who coordinated the grant for the Police Department along with Foothill High School Resource Officer Van Rader.

"The kids did such an awesome job," said Mezzetti. "They were so creative with their messages."

This summer, watch those pre-movie messages carefully. Some will be starring teens from your neighborhoods.

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