After producing the winning video in a contest about distracted driving, three York County high school students can now focus on what to do with their prize money.
Tabb High School Seniors Malia Rosburg, Hope Matthews and Alisabeth Rodriguez teamed up to produce a video documenting the dangers of distracted driving for the No 2 Distracted Driving contest.
The trio split $3,500 after being awarded the contest’s grand prize, with another $3,500 being awarded to the school.
The short film named “What If?” was written, directed and edited by Rosburg, who said she is involved in Tiger TV, Tabb’s student TV group. The film stars Matthews and Rodriguez, who are seen walking into study hall. Matthews then falls asleep in the film, and dreams of driving while texting— before running over her friend Rodriguez.
Matthews wakes up to find Rodriguez standing in front of her.
The three filmmakers hope the video will serve as a wake-up call about the dangers of distracted driving.
“Since I needed to have an emotional appeal in the video, I incorporated a friendship in there,” Rosburg said. “It sends a message and makes me think, ‘what if that happened?’ and how bad that would be.”
While the video’s tone was somber, the girls agreed they had fun filming, especially the scene which was most difficult to produce: Rodriguez being hit by the car.
“I’ve done a lot of things for theater before but not for film, so it was definitely a different experience for me,” Matthews said. “It was funny while we were doing that, as ironic as it is. It was really hard.”
The students filmed the accident scene in Rodriguez’s neighborhood, and needed several takes before they had footage they felt looked realistic.
The video was selected as one of four finalists by a panel of judges, and it took a community effort during the later voting period to win the grand prize. More than 76,000 votes were cast for the four films.
When they won, their family and friends shared in their excitement.
“They were ecstatic,” Rosburg said. “They devoted so much time to voting…We’d dedicate our whole evening to voting over and over again.”
The girls agreed they would put most of their prize money in savings, and use it either for college or for the real world after graduation. Elizabeth Milne, a Tabb English teacher and Tiger TV faculty member, said the school’s share of the winnings would be put toward new video equipment for the student-television program.
“The whole reason we entered the contest was because we’re raising money to buy new equipment,” Rosburg said. “I’m really happy we did it so we can produce really, really good stuff.”
Word of their victory spread quickly through the school community, and the seniors received congratulations from friends, teachers and fellow students— even students they barely knew.
“It’s touching to know a lot of people in our school did vote for us, and bringing the community together was nice to see,” Rodriguez said.