WOODBURY — Nonnewaug students have staked their claim to countless accolades this spring but for NHS’ video students, these awards have the power to save lives.
NHS senior students Zodie Smith and Greg Voros have earned high praise for the annual Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles safe driving PSA for their creative design. The project was awarded $750 dollars to Nonnewaug’s video program and each student was given $200 in the form of a gift card.
“The check is hanging in the green room,” says Katie Blake, NHS’ media arts teacher, “and what we bought with the check was this beautiful cinema camera that now, with Greg and Zodie graduating, this will live on and other students will be able to use it and create magic-quality video projects using the camera thanks to their big win.”
The award-winning video features Voros, a teen driver himself, texting while driving, though the creativity of the award comes in as Voros sends his message, albeit slowly, on a typewriter, underscoring the point that just because text messaging is easier than ever in modern times, doesn’t make it any less dangerous.
“The more homework on it you do and the more you understand what the audience is looking for, meaning the DMV, the more likely it is that you’ll be successful,” said Blake, recalling the original designs for the project. “It was on a much larger scale for a while where Greg was actually considering like almost going back to caveman days writing on a wall with chalk and he bumped into the wall. I actually ended up getting some of my uncle’s old phones that he had saved. So I actually brought in old school flip phones because we thought we would show the actual typing on the keyboard but then we ended up saying ‘let’s just do the typewriter and cell phone to keep it simple.’”
From there, the video, and the ideas that catalyzed it, grew into an award-winning submission.
“Initially we started with a much more complex idea,” said Smith, a senior co-creator on the project who will be studying communications this fall at CT State. “At first, we wanted to do a time period video with cavemen but then we realized that realistically we don’t have the time or the funds to do that so we tried to downscale and keep that same idea but just an easier way to do it. We felt pretty good about it after we finished the video but we didn’t know how many people submitted to the contest. We had no idea of how we would do so it was really cool to find out that we had won.”
The plot and underlying message of the submitted video was completely student designed and formulated.
“I discovered the contest while I was scrolling through social media and I saw that post and got so excited to offer it to my students,” Blake said. “I reached out immediately and got all the details. I made a few suggestions, just that they do their research on the subject and see what messaging is important to them. Otherwise, it was 100% the student’s creativity and the work that they put in.”
For Voros and Smith, this isn’t the first accomplishment for their work in video production; this spring also saw Smith earn acclaim for a FOX 61 Student News piece titled, “Rising Above the Water.” This news story featured Smith on site in Southbury profiling the community’s efforts to rebuild following the floods of last summer. Within this story, Smith spoke with Southbury residents like Cathy Dibner who saw her farm, housing a few hundred chickens, destroyed in the August floods.
As a collaborative team, Smith and Voros also received nominations for their piece titled “Healing Trauma Through Art.” The duo is a FOX 61 Student News nominee for a series FOX calls “Break the Cycle,” where students bring awareness to domestic violence in communities.
Additionally, this spring saw Voros submit a piece examining Nonnewaug’s R-Word campaign, a movement initiated by Special Olympics that asks students to rethink using the word r-word on campus.
“I feel like these videos have given me a voice to express important topics creatively and hear important stories from people that make up our community,” said Smith. “These videos have pushed me out of my comfort zone and provided me with confidence to pursue my next creative ventures.”
