Hello, I’m Caroline, and I’ve gotten the pleasure to write about what is currently happening in videography. The Santiago Film and Media crew is currently working on a mental health video. It is their submission video for directingchange.org, it will also take place throughout the annual film contest, and Santiago’s film festival. Directingchange.org is a statewide program that shares information and educates on suicide prevention, any discrimination or misinterpretations towards mental illness, and promotes the wellness and mental health of students.
A while back before the media team started on their short films they had a guest speaker, Mrs. Lakso, who works for the Department of Education and works closely with the directing change program. She supplied us with data and explained to us, we had discussed a few ideas and topics. Including suicide rates how it’s been increasing rapidly, and data that will help us understand how to effectively put the information into the films. She explained that any of our videos that are entered into the contest and won first place will move up to the next level. From there on and on it’ll get through statewide, district, and then countywide. It was important to understand the context but also to be mindful of explaining or expressing emotions that will be put into the films. Nowadays it’s normalized for people with mental illnesses to be portrayed as dangerous or violent when they are not. As well as labeling people words that could be very offensive and disrespectful. We learned the difference between labels and what it means and how we could say something less offensive.
Firstly, what videographers have to do is they have to plan out, gather materials, and actors, and create scripts using their completed storyboards. Storyboards are like a planner, they could also help understand the type of shot, scenes, and what each part would be like, and what, when, and where. They had some options of creating different types of videos but every one of them will spread awareness and help towards mental health. It is a 60-second video but its content within it shows how being aware of the signs of somebody who could be having a difficult time with their mental health, could help them out. Asking if they are having suicidal thoughts, reassuring them, and providing or seeking help for them so they know they are not alone during a difficult situation. Also, they had a second choice of creating a video through the lens of culture. It’s based on exploring topics of suicide prevention and mental health but with creative aspects being put into the video they produce. Suicide prevention was the last option, providing a video about somebody with signs of suicidal thoughts and showing how it could affect personal life, socializing, and the way you think. Videography is making a draft so everyone can give off ideas and commentary based on each video, criticizing each other and then knowing what they can edit, add, and understand what would go well with each of their films.
Videographers are creating mental health films for a contest but they are just not any regular videos to be competed against with others. They need to know that what they create can be powerful and important. It can help people understand the aspects of how mental health can affect people and be like towards people who don’t see it. It can help all of us understand and promote wellness for everybody and stop discrimination and false labels toward people with mental illnesses. If it were just a simple regular 60-second video, people wouldn’t be interested right? But if it had creativity towards the films it also explains the importance of mental health and what it could do to us when it gets to a point where it is hard to cope with. Understanding how bad it could affect us or people we know will help a lot towards just asking if somebody’s alright. Showing what our films can bring to the audience will adjust how we see people or how we think. It’s been normalized for people to call out others and say harsh things because we as people don’t know what those words could do.
In the end, when everything’s completed and submitted the outcomes would be unexpected. All of the films will be amazing due to the effort and creativity to spread awareness and wellness towards mental health. Students and viewers will gain more knowledge of films that help them understand and see what mental health is like.