- November 16, 2024
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Emily Beamer, Jirawadee Battenhouse, Tracey Hicks, and Liam Lantz stand with one of their TV Production T-shirts in the TV Production lab at Matanzas High School. Photo Jacque Estes
Liam Lantz, Jirawadee Battenhouse, and Emily Beamer proudly show their First Place plaque for a 30-second PSA they created. Photo Jacque Estes
Click here to see the winning video and other winners from around the country.
Abduction, sexual abuse, domestic violence and human trafficking – these were just some of the topics students in Tracey Hicks’ TV Production 4 class, would choose from for their public service announcement assignment.
“We branched off it,” Jirawadee Battenhouse said.
Jirawadee, Emily Beamer and Liam Lantz, all seniors in their fourth year of television production, took their PSA one step further, to something they knew about.
The three have been a team since they were freshmen in TV Production 1, and it shows. They are on the same wave length and finish each other’s thoughts and sentences.
“We wanted to choose something,” Liam began… “That grabs people’s attention,” Jirawadee ended.
According to the teens, date rape is not uncommon.
“People don’t think it’s a big deal that people go to a party, get intoxicated and stuff like that happens,” Liam said.
“It’s not even thought of as rape. Some people think that’s too big a word,” Jirawadee added.
“A girl goes to a party and the guys saying, ‘she came on to me,’” Emily concluded.
It was this awareness and concern that motivated the trio to start this project last year. The end result was more than an assignment, it was something for their fellow students, and it won First Place in the KinderVision Greatest Save Team PSA Program.
The team staged a loud and hectic party atmosphere with a teenage girl being led into a bedroom. There’s music, but no dialogue. Short text lines appear at the end and, in a mere five seconds, sends the message home – “If she can’t walk; If she can’t talk; If she can’t stand; If she can’t fight back; If she can’t resist; She can’t give consent.”
They all agreed that cutting it down to 30-seconds was the hardest part of the production.
“If something is concise it will give you what you want,” Liam said.
“It had to be 30 seconds because so many people’s attention spans are so short,” Emily added.
This year is bittersweet for Hicks, as the students she has had in class for four years graduate and move on.
“They have been with me since ninth grade, so I have seen them grow from 9th-graders to 12th -graders, to what their futures will potentially be," Hicks said. "It’s been a pleasure watching them grow up; they’re my babies.”
Hicks said she allows the students the creativity they need to talk about a project and if something needs to be adjusted, she will tell them.
“I think the message works well because they know these things happen in their environment,” she said. “I thought it was a powerful message, and I thought it was one that was honest.”
The team presented their PSA at a school board meeting. Rarely is the board room as quiet as it was during the 30-seconds the video was shown.
The message and the PSA might make some uncomfortable, and that is fine with the three teenagers.
“Making them feel something is better than them just watching it,” Jirawadee said. “We didn’t tone it down, that’s not reality. They don’t tone it down in real life, so why should we?”
