We received a brief to produce a video to teach the community about road safety and parking around the Buderim Mountain State School.
Traffic can be a dry topic and often a contentious one so we wanted to ensure the video was unique and friendly, with a point of difference.
The main focus was to encourage people to be safe around schools, and help ensure that students arrive and return from school safely. As the students were the focus, we decided they should also be the messenger.
It was an ambitious idea that could have missed the mark, had the young presenters not been up to the task.
We worked on a script with the School and Main Roads Queensland. When that was finalised, the School’s drama teacher cast five students to present the video classes.
The first meeting with the students was a table read like they do in Hollywood, except this was during big lunch at the school library – and it was a working lunch as the kids pulled their sandwiches out of their school bags 🙂
One by one, they eased our concerns with their confidence and we recorded each of them for reference.
Based on their styles, we selected sections for each student to present in the video.
Next meeting with the kids was a rehearsal with the auto cue and the big scary camera. Which didn’t scare them at all. They were really excited to each have a turn and to see each other present on the monitors. This encouraged them and also helped us achieve a consistent style among the group.
Then we cast our locations, two classrooms that represented the history and present of the School.
One was the Japanese room, part of the original section of the School, where we are told as part of their lessons they even have a traditional tea ceremony.
The other room, which was suggested by the kids, was the Science Lab, complete with robots.
Over two days each of the kids came onto the ‘set’ stood in front of the camera and presented with all of the charisma and connection of television presenters. In fact, they were pros, doing better than many adults, the first time they try an auto cue.
After the presenter segments were filmed, we involved the wider school community to act out scenarios, crossing roads correctly, walking to school singing in the back seats of cars.
Then we animated sections, illustrating parking zones, bringing to life concepts in a fun and approachable way.
Finally the videos were launched at School Assemblies with channel Seven filming for the local news and some of our presenters, as well as the School’s Principal and P&C Vice-President, were interviewed.
The series of six videos were each sent out as part of a six-week campaign has been sent via email to parents, as well as broadcast on social media and has been viewed thousands of times and will be a resource for many years to come.
ABC Sunshine Coast also played audio of the one minute of the introduction and interviewed a representative from the School P&C and other media was also obtained to boost community engagement.
The videos will be rolled out again over the year’s to share with the Buderim community importance of “Lessons in Road Safety”.
We also produced accompanying posters for use around the school and in community as well as flyers to go out to parents in school orientation packs.
