BY JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer
NORTH BRUNSWICK – Bill is standing in a yard, throwing a ball into the air and catching it. Jeremy is lying on the floor, looking relaxed, with his hands behind his head. The two recount a baseball game versus Sayreville in which the two assisted each other with a double play.
Smiles of happy recollections turn into frowns of sadder recollections, as Jeremy disappears from the scene. The words “Jeremy wasn’t drinking – the kid driving was” are printed on two separate screens as a shot of a cemetery appears. Jeremy was killed in a drunken-driving accident.
The North Brunswick Township High School Media Production Club received first-place honors for its 30-second public service announcement submitted to the eighth annual Middlesex County Don’t Drink and Drive video contest on May 3.
According to the N.J. State Police Reporting System, there were 63 fatal collisions in Middlesex County in 2006, 24 percent of which involved a drunk driver. The video contest is one of several scheduled events throughout the county at various venues to remind students of the seriousness of impaired driving, especially during the prom and graduation season. The five members of the media club brainstormed about how to best portray the message of not drinking and driving. They wanted to express the power of friendship and how relationships can change in an instant.
“I had seen many PSAs before, and a lot of them seemed really tacky and didn’t reach people. Everyone here in the club is here because we love movies, and we really wanted to make it like a movie more than a common PSA and do something that would really get across our message in 30 seconds,” said junior Justin Reager.
The students met once or twice a week for four weeks and decided that instead of portraying the typical scenes of a car accident, a house party or bottles crashing, they would depict the after-effects of a serious accident. Their idea was to focus on how in real life, people are affected by emotional pain just as much as physical pain. The goal was to show the innocence of Jeremy, as a victim, in an effort to reach their target audience: their peers.
“It’s important to display this message because teens are most likely affected by it. Our generation is affected the most, and a lot of statistics say that kids our age get killed by drunk drivers,” sophomore Marissa Roth said.
Reager wrote the screenplay and portrayed Bill and junior Joseph Russo acted as Jeremy. The other students, Roth and fellow sophomores Donte Rose and Jaritza Ortega, helped with the filming and editing under the supervision of Carol Marks. The scenes were shot in Babbage Park and on the school grounds.
Last year, a Spanish video created by the high school’s Spanish for Native Speakers II class won first place and in 2003 the English submission won.
“I love what I do and these guys are so creative,” Marks said. “I work with a lot of talented students, the club being a hub right now. I think this is a great thing for the students.”
Second place this year was awarded to Monroe Township High School, under the director of Larissa Miller, and third place was given to the Woodbridge campus of the Middlesex County Vocational & Technical High School, under project adviser Richard Donofrio. Neither adviser could be reached for comment.
“We are exceedingly proud of the hard work and tremendous thought that went into every one of these compelling, extremely moving videos,” said county Freeholder H. James Polos, the chairman of the county Public Works and Transportation Committee. “I’m sure the videos will be effective tools in the fight against drinking and driving.”
The contest was co-sponsored by the Board of Chosen Freeholders, the county Superintendent of Schools Patrick Piegari, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Middlesex County, the Injury Prevention Program, Level One Trauma Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. The county received around $20,000 in grants from the N.J. State Division of Highway Traffic Safety to run the PSA program.
North Brunswick received a check for $1,000 to be put toward Project Graduation or other Driver Safety and Awareness Programs in the district. The Division of Highway Traffic Safety provided gift certificates to each member of the winning teams. The award ceremony was held in the Arline & Henry Schwartzman Courtyard of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.