The video production Grade 9 students at Dr. Knox Middle School have produced a series of short films related to cyber bullying.
The idea behind the class project is for students’ to help make a positive difference in the lives of their peers, reinforcing the message of the anti-bullying campaign Pink Shirt Day in schools today, said their teacher Bruce Watts.
Class members produced two videos targeted specifically at elementary school students, which feature Grade 7 actors and which will be circulated to Central Okanagan school principals with the hope they will be shared with their school students.
“These students recognize that cyber bullying is a very real threat to youth and are hoping to pay their messages forward to do some good in the community leading up to Pink Shirt Day,” said Watts.
Ashley Kimler was one of four students who worked on the film short called Cheater, along with Lauryn Guy, Taylor Ruhr and Julianne Nelson.
Kimler said completing the project became more work than she originally anticipated, dealing with a script and visual ideas. “We were trying to be creative and we found it was a lot more work than just going out and shooting some footage and editing it,” Kimler said.
“I would do it again, it was fun and I really enjoyed it, but it was more work than I thought it would be.”
The plot behind the video involves a girl cheating at a game and being called out by a boy. “It all goes haywire from that point on,” she explained.
Kimler said she and her co-producers spent time over a three-month period working on the final result.
She said they specifically set out to target elementary aged kids because most anti-bullying material tends to focus on middle and high school kids.
“Cyber bullying goes on in elementary school level more and more so we wanted to address some attention on that age group,” said Kimler.
Â
