An original video to promote teen driver safety created by three ACS high school students has been entered into a statewide “Just Drive” PSA Video Contest, as part of a campaign to focus attention on teen driving safety and reducing teen driving injuries and deaths. The 30-second video, entitled “Limit Distractions,” was created by Eddie Ireland, Summer Scott, and Isaac Choi (pictured here from left) as part of a multi-week project in Rhapsody Hahn-Chaney’s High School Information Technology Class.  ACS is a member of the U Got Brains Champion School Program and received a $1,000 stipend to underwrite the video project and a related social media campaign.

The video created by Choi, Ireland, and Scott was one of four made by different student teams in the class.  Students in the class and in the high school Driver’s Ed class, as well as several teachers and administrators, viewed the four videos and voted to select the video to be submitted for the contest.  The contest is being sponsored by the Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey, as well as the program’s funder, the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, and its founding sponsor, NJM Insurance Group.

For the social media campaign, Hahn-Chaney posted four videos from February 22-25 on the ACS Facebook and Instagram pages that reminded teenagers to just drive and avoid distractions when behind the wheel, like being on the phone or eating.  Two of the posts included photos of ACS students as actors in their video PSA projects, recording clips in the parking lot for their videos, and editing a video clip in the ACS computer lab.

Hahn-Chaney said each student team had a creative designer, a director, and an editor. The students planned out shot lists, wrote scripts for voiceover recordings, and spent time in the ACS parking lot taking videos using camera equipment and cell phones.  Back in the classroom, the students edited their videos using various tools such as a screen recording program called Screencastify and video editing software like iMovie and Flixier.

The selected ACS student video will be competing against videos submitted by teams from other New Jersey high schools. The winners of the top videos in the contest will be announced in May. ACS students involved in the video project will also take a field trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ on May 26 for the contest Awards Showcase, joining other New Jersey high school students who entered the contest.

CLICK HERE to view the student video being entered into the contest.