Xpress, the Coolest Section of the St. Petersburg Times, is the home for features, news and views of interest to young readers. Most of the work in Xpress, which appears on Mondays in Floridian, is produced by the Times' X-Team. The team of journalists ages 9-17 from around the Tampa Bay area is selected every year at the end of the school year to serve during the following school term. The current team of 12 was chosen out of 150 applicants. Watch for X-Team application forms in Xpress during the month of May.
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Getting 'Real'
Nine Gibbs High drama students film a series of antidrug videos for nationwide broadcast.
By JACKY JOHNSON
Published January 12, 2004
[Times photos: Lara Cerri]
Producer Mark McCrickard, left, gets ready for the next shot as Gibbs student actors Brian Hauser, 17, and Megan Goldman, 18, hug during filming Nov. 15 of an antidrug video outside the St. Petersburg Clay Company.
Producer Mark McCrickard explains to Alex Toigo, 17, how to approach the camera for a scene.
ST. PETERSBURG - Nine Gibbs High School drama students gathered in a dark production studio, arranged carefully on the bright green and purple couches and the red shag rug. Their scripts were hidden in the folds of magazines on their laps.
Later this year, their faces should be splashed across the televisions of middle and high schools around the nation in a series of antidrug videos, called Real View Mirror: Looking at Your Future, Leaving the Drug Culture Behind.
"Nice deep breath, everyone. Lots of energy," said Mark McCrickard, media consultant and director of the shoot. "And ACTION!"
"Aren't roofies and GHB date rape drugs?" asks junior Alexa Matz, 16. The camera swiveled to the next speaker.
"Yeah, because once you are unknowingly dosed and all zoned out, you can be raped or robbed or who knows what," said Dustin Triplett, 18, a senior.
"Not a date I want to have," Alexa says.
The idea for the videos was born four months ago. It is the product of two organizations with similar goals, the Drug Free America Foundation and Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training, a federally funded partnership between St. Petersburg College and the National Guard.
This was their first day of filming at the St. Petersburg College Allstate building.
"This is not your typical stale type of thing. It's realistic. It's an open dialogue about drugs," said Lana Beck, communications director for the foundation and one of the masterminds behind Real View Mirror. "We are trying to get it marketed to parents and kids - anybody and everybody concerned about helping reduce drug abuse in society."
The four-part educational series is geared toward youth but has messages for adults as well. It will describe club drugs, the harms of marijuana, drug victimization and the flawed notion of "harm reduction."
Harm reduction (dubbed "harm promotion" by the foundation) describes the growing belief that students should be taught how to use illegal drugs safely.
"A poison is a poison no matter how carefully you consume it," said Calvina Fay, the foundation's executive director. "(Harm reduction) gives kids a green light to use drugs."
Ecstasy and rave parties also are hot topics for the videos. Promoted as alcohol-free dance parties, raves are "riddled with drugs," Fay said.
"They sell bottles of water for very high prices because "if you drink a lot of water, you'll be safe,"' she said. "The parents allow their kids to go because they don't realize that these (parties) are potentially deadly."
More than 60 students from the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs auditioned for the parts in the cast. Eight were selected for the discussions and were given a script that reads like a dialogue. Another plays the "It's A FACT!" girl.
"We're trying not to make this the typical, cheesy health video that you watch in class and you're like "just shoot me,' " said senior Krista Church, 17. "They wrote the dialogue but they let us change it to fit our style. We're trying to be ourselves."
Besides the drama students, the videos also will feature experts - doctors, lawyers, forensic toxicologists, chemists and police officers - just about anybody who knows anything about drugs.
"This is really looking good. I'm stoked about it," said McCrickard, the producer, as he scanned the cast. "The kids seem to be having a lot of fun."
He moved toward the set and began the prescene countdown.
"Deep breath everyone. Quiet on the set. And ACTION!"
"Hey check this out. . . . Another example of harm promotion. It's a safe crack kit," Alexa says.
"A what?" says junior John Bambery, 16.
"A safe crack kit." Alexa passed it off to Brian Hauser, 17, and a senior, who was sitting beside her.
"No really check it out, an alcohol wipe to clean the mouth piece of the pipe," Hauser said.
"Well if you're smoking crack," said junior Leonard Williams, 16, "you want to be careful of germs."
Real View Mirror will be released in early 2004. It is one of many projects co-produced by the foundation and the task force to carry out their mission of a drug-free society.
"Young people are still in school. They're still learning, still growing. And when they use drugs, they retard their abilities," said Fay, the foundation's executive director. "If we can keep young people off drugs until their early 20s, they most likely won't develop a drug problem. The majority do not start as adults."
- Jacky Johnson, 16, is in the 10th grade at Seminole High School and was a member of the 2002-2003 X-Team.
