An anti-bullying video by Great Salt Bay Community School students advanced to the top 25 of more than 900 videos entered in a national contest.
The three eighth graders who make up the crew of the video, Haven Simmons, 14, and 13-year-old twins Aaron and Bradley Destinoble, were able to impress the judges with their work despite being among the youngest competitors.
The Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention’s Stop Bullying Video Challenge limits entries to students between the ages of 13-18, and the majority of videos were by high school students, the crew members said.
The approximately six-week journey began early in September with an email from Great Salt Bay Technology Coordinator K.J. Flewelling to school social worker Rebecca Cannon with a link to the contest website.
Cannon thought the contest would be a good student project, and some students told her about Simmons, who has a local access television show and a YouTube channel and aspires to a career as a movie director.
“I make videos all the time,” Simmons said. “I do stop motion animation and live action videos for my YouTube and I go to LCTV and work on my own TV show.”
In addition to producing episodes of his show, “In Search of Link,” he records events, like a recent chorus concert, and studies video production at Lincoln County Television’s Newcastle station.
Cannon approached Simmons to work on the project. He agreed and recruited his friends and occasional collaborators, the Destinobles, to help with the video and record a soundtrack.
For the next month, Cannon would gather the boys during lunch or recess to brainstorm ideas for a video.
“I think we got to talking about this idea that you don’t need some superhero to come in and save you,” Cannon said. “The big message that the kids were excited about is, we can do something to stop this today.”
With an idea in place, the little group started planning for the shoot, making lists of everything they would need, mapping out locations and refining their idea.
Finally, with a video camera borrowed from Cannon’s husband, seventh grade teacher John Cannon, and a cast of about 60 students from grades 3-8, the crew was ready to film.
The task of gathering and organizing the students, mostly fourth graders, during 15-minute recess periods – Cannon did not want the video to interrupt academic time – was a challenge.
“It was just a scramble,” Cannon said. “Everything had to go so fast.”
The students also had to follow the contest rules, including a tricky prohibition on brand logos.
Despite these challenges, the crew wrapped filming after just three days.
Next, Simmons had just three more days to edit about 30 minutes of footage, using a school-issued MacBook and Apple’s iMovie application, and submit the 31-second video by the Oct. 12 deadline.
Meanwhile, Flewelling, the technology coordinator, and Aaron Destinoble recorded the soundtrack with another school laptop, Apple’s GarageBand and Aaron’s ocarina, a tiny instrument the size of a kazoo but, in function and sound, similar to a flute.
“K.J. chose a beat to it and I played the rest on my ocarina,” Aaron said.
The final product opens with a voice-over. “Here’s the bad news: bullying happens,” the student says. “Here’s the good news: you don’t have to be an expert or an adult to stop it. Here’s what you can do.”
The next several scenes of the video show students in various school situations, with short, simple directions to the audience.
For example, in the opening scene, a student sits alone on a bench by the athletics field before two other students arrive with a soccer ball and the student joins them in a game. The narrator says “include me.”
Later, the camera pans across a full swingset as a narrator says “swing with me” and focuses on a crowded jungle gym as another says “hang out with me.”
In another scene, a student says “encourage me” and, as one student sits next to another on the bus, “sit with me.”
Finally, a large group of students stands in front of the school and shouts “Stop bullying!” as one row of the students holds handmade placards, each with one letter, spelling the website address “www.stopbullying.gov.”
Rebecca Cannon submitted the video, and for about a month, she did not receive a response.
Finally, she received an email announcing that, of the 900-plus submissions, the boys’ was one of the top 25 and still in the running for the grand prize of $2000 or two honorable mentions, worth $500 apiece.
The team had decided to donate any prize to the fundraising campaign to build a new playground.
Cannon, during the exciting weeks after the email, used the video as a teaching tool. As the school’s social worker, she goes into every classroom once a week to work with students.
“We had some really good dialogue with the students of all grades and all the students were rooting for them and wanting them to get to the next level,” Cannon said.
Students of all ages would approach Cannon or their filmmaker classmates to ask about the status of the contest or offer a compliment.
The boys’ video did not advance to the final round, announced Dec. 3. Their accomplishment has, however, been recognized at a school assembly and a meeting of the Great Salt Bay School Committee.
All three boys say they have experienced bullying. For Aaron and Bradley, it was while attending school in Florida before moving to Maine. Haven said it was when he was younger. All three, however, agreed that they do not see a lot of bullying at GSB these days.
Cannon believes the video has had a positive impact on the student body. “I do think that it did something,” she said. “I do think that it helped us talk about this at more of a school-wide level.”
To watch the video, visit www.lctv.org.
