Youth-produced safe driving PSA

Driving comes with its share of distractions. Local youth want the community to know about the repercussions of distracted and impaired driving.

A group of high school students combined their talents and perspectives to create a safe-driving video public service announcement (PSA) called Destructive Driving, the culmination of a months-long camp for youth spearheaded by Mountain Youth and High Five Access Media. The camp brought together students with an interest in creating a safer driving environment in Eagle County. The youth learned about distracted and impaired driving and film-making techniques to produce a 90-second PSA that will show on Comcast cable, High Five Access Media, and social media. A PSA serves to raise public awareness and to change behavior.

“The partnership between High Five Access Media and Mountain Youth aligned perfectly for this project. High Five’s mission to empower the local community through media education and Mountain Youth’s mission to improve the lives of youth, worked to create this safe driving PSA project,” said Barry Eckhaus, Education and Access Coordinator at High Five Access Media. 

The students involved in the project are Ava Baker, William Belisle, Allie Braun and Angela Pena, who attend high schools from Edwards to Gypsum. They learned several skills, including storytelling, script writing and shot visualization, camera and composition, audio and editing techniques to complete the project. 

“I am extremely impressed and excited by the students' creativity, the ease of which they were able to work together, and the time they committed to creating this video project,” said Eckhaus.

The students' passion to learn film and video production along with their drive to make our roads safer combined to create this semester-long project promoting sober and alert driving. They started from scratch, developed and wrote the script, acted, directed, shot and edited the PSA in its entirety.

High Five Access Media strives to empower the local community, through media education and technology, to become civically engaged, express ideas, and advocate for causes. You can watch on Comcast Channel 5, livestream at highfivemedia.org or on Apple TV and Roku. If you have an interest in learning about video and film production, you can find upcoming educational classes at highfivemedia.org/media-education.

Mountain Youth works to continuously and collaboratively improve the lives of youth in the most powerful ways possible. They hold programming and events to build positive youth development. You can find more information at MountainYouth.org.