It’s been said that a picture is worth 1,000 words. According to Chelsea Didde, a video is nearly priceless.
“Think of video as a picture times 10,” Didde says. “When you add movement, music, facial expression, audio, colors and lighting, that picture becomes so much more.”
The St. Thomas Aquinas High School senior and upstart videographer knows what she’s talking about. Although she’s barely 18 years old, Didde’s video creations have already won her two awards, local airtime on Nickelodeon, MTV and the Cartoon Network, thousands of hits on YouTube and the respect and admiration of her teachers and peers. And while she describes her video-making hobby as just plain fun, she’s employed its power to reach teens about subjects that impact their lives the most, with underage drinking at the top of the list.
Didde has always taken a strong personal stance against underage drinking.
“I thought it was just a given that you didn’t do that,” says the senior, whose blond hair gives her a fresh-faced, left-coast beauty that’s hard to miss.
Then, two friends and Aquinas graduates, Jared Cheek and Matty Molnar, were killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver. Overcome with sadness, confusion and anger, yet inspired by MercyMe’s top Christian hit “I Can Only Imagine,” Didde grabbed a video camera and converted emotion into action and loss into gain.
The result was two public service announcements that have won the Johnson County STOP Underage Drinking Project’s PSA Creative Award two years running. Just 30 seconds each, both shoot straight and cut to the heart of the deadly consequences of underage drinking.
Regarding their success, Didde is introspective.
“Both [of the spots] were personal—something the audience could really connect to,” she says.
One spot begins with the upbeat music of adolescence accompanied by shots of St. Thomas Aquinas students enjoying universal rites of passage: football games, house parties, prom.
“Your teen years can be some of the best in your life,” says a voice as the pictures flash. “I never want to wake up with a hangover and wonder, ‘What did I do last night?’”
The music pauses with a driving guitar riff and a picture of twisted metal where the front of a car had once been.
“Or worse . . . never wake up at all,” continues the voice. Graying headstones in a cemetery appear on the screen for the final scene.
Didde concedes that her juxtaposition of life’s best and worst images can be pretty raw—but necessary. After all, as a teen herself, she knows what motivates her target audience.
“Kids are somewhat desensitized today,” she admits. “That’s why it’s good to be gutsy—within reason.”
Another of her award-winning PSAs contrasts a sunny and serene field of green—a hand holding a daisy—with jarring catcalls of night-partying, taillights glaring and car brakes screeching.
“To drink. Not to drink,” says the voiceover, as the petals are picked off the daisy one-by-one. The back-and-forth scenes of serenity versus chaos flash continuously until the lights and sounds of an ambulance appear. As the music becomes more ominous and more insistent, all the petals of the daisy fall to the ground. The voiceover warns, “Don’t leave your life to chance. Stand up against underage drinking.”
While standing up against drinking has occupied much of her high school career, Didde shrugs off excessive praise, insisting that her own experience hasn’t been a difficult one.
“I got so lucky,” she says. “I have a strong group of friends.”
A solid relationship with parents willing to discuss their views on the subject has also helped.
“They’ve always discouraged me and my younger brother from underage drinking because it’s illegal and could put us in harm’s way,” she says.
Unwavering in her own stance, Didde is neither self-righteous nor chastising toward others. Rather, she’s markedly practical.
“I think it’s important for teenagers to know that if they do make a choice to drink, they still have the opportunity to make a better choice about getting home,” she says.
For now, the toughest choice facing Chelsea Didde is whether to attend the University of Kansas or the University of Missouri next fall and major in advertising or journalism. Although she insists she loves advertising—the “(RED)” ad campaign is her current favorite—it’s easy to see a stint in film in her future. In fact, she can barely listen to a song without filmmaking in her mind’s eye.
“When I hear a song, I see so many pictures in my head,” she explains. “And when I put music and video together, I get that tingly feeling just watching it.”
Although her PSAs saw airtime at local movie theaters last year, Didde admits she never personally witnessed her work on the big screen. As for friends and acquaintances who did see her anti-underage drinking messages?
“They’re glad someone’s standing up for it,” she says. “It’s hard being a teenager.”
(Article from 435 South Magazine)
(View the Public Service Ads here: 2007 and 2008)
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