Senior Tommy Marshall discusses his video, “Think Twice.”

Who were the creators?

My co-creators were Kindred Curry, Xavier Watson, Alex Lane, and Nick Cabral.

Why did you create this piece?

We created it because the Kansas Turnpike Authority was holding a contest for distracted driving, mostly texting and driving, but we decided to go another route and do drinking and driving.

What is this piece about?

It’s about a kid who goes to a party and gets drunk. Later, he decides to leave and his friend asks him if he wants a ride, and he declines. So, by him declining, he made a conscious decision to drink and drive, and that led to an event where he hit somebody. Then it jumps back in time to where he goes back inside and asks for a ride, At that point, everything that would’ve happened if he would’ve declined the ride retracts, so it goes back in time. That shows that you have the decision to make to drink and drive or not.

Where did you get your ideas?

At first, it was totally different. We were thinking about doing a truck with a bunch of beer cans in the back, but that ended up not working because the character I was trying to make people emotionally attached to didn’t really work. So we redid the script a couple times, then our teacher had the idea of chronologically messing with the timeline. We messed with that a little bit, and that’s where we got the idea to shoot the video that way.

What’s your favorite thing about it?

My favorite thing is probably just messing with the chronological timeline. A lot of people didn’t do that, and I think it separated it from all the other videos.

Did you guys win the award?

We got third place, and we won an iPad for our film class, and we have a recognition slip somewhere out there.

Why did you choose to do drinking and driving instead of texting and driving?

Because we knew that everyone else was going to do texting and driving, so in order to separate ourselves from everybody else, we decided to do drinking and driving, which I don’t think anybody really did, other than one other group.

Where was it shot, and who shot it?

It was shot at Kendrid Curry’s house, near Prairie Park elementary, and Xavier Watson was our director of photography who shot the video.

What was it edited on, and by who? What program was used?

It was edited on one of the school’s Mac desktop computers, and it was edited by Kedrid Curry; I was a co-editor. We used Adobe Premier.

What was your official role in production?

My official role was to create the script and be the director, so I led everybody and told them their roles, and to make sure everything was getting shot and done properly.

Why do you like to create?

I like to create because I guess it’s a form of expression. It’s not as direct as just saying how you feel. It also makes other people want to create when they can see what you can do. It’s really good to hear people say “oh that’s really cool.” I’m a very visual person, so I decided to do film instead of music or something else.

What’s your favorite medium? Why?

My favorite medium is probably film, because I’m very visual. And I think it’s the easiest to understand, there’s not a lot of digging with it. I mean some people can create it that way, but it’s usually, like, right in front of your face.

If someone said videography wasn’t art, what would you say to them?

I would tell them it is very much an art form, because there’s a lot of hidden things you can do with it. It’s telling a story and you can tell the story in many different ways, and art is just kind of expressing things in different ways.