Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993 TAG: 9303240157
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
A BLUE TRAINING FILM
Seven students are plotting in the small space of Jo Ann Underwood's office."We need something that happens frequently that people just don't think of," says Meighan Belsley, a student from Great Falls.
Sarah Bedard, a communications major, thinks out loud. "I know a guy who's afraid to kiss a girl when she's drunk because he's afraid she might change her mind in the morning and say she didn't want it."
The idea is to construct a skit for a television show, one of six to be written, directed and filmed at Virginia Tech.
The bigger idea is to reach college students with a message on the dangers of alcohol, drugs and sexually transmitted diseases. Programs with an "It-happened-to-me, don't-let-it-happen-to-you" theme seem to work with college students.
Tech's health educators received a $12,000 grant for the project last year from the discretionary fund of the governor's Drug Free Schools and Communities Act. The group is trying to address some of the problems identified by a task force on drugs and alcohol abuse and sexual assault.
"How about something like `Ask Mr. Hokie Bird?' " Bedard suggested. She is reaching, trying to help the group finish its project on time, which would be about mid-April. "I'm kidding! Can you imagine watching something like that for half an hour?'
This particular morning, the students - actors, peer educators and those just interested in helping - are trying to build a convincing script for a program on how to get a friend to use a counseling service.
Underwood, who wrote the grant proposal, stays on the sidelines and lets the students talk. Every now and then, she offers some fine-tuning or gives the group a gentle nudge.
Chairs take up most of the room in the health education office. Someone knocks over a box of condoms, stored here for condom-awareness week and other projects. After a quick snicker, they're ignored.
"I've got it, I've got it," Bedard says, waving her hands for attention. "We can use a real counselor."
One idea leads to another and by meeting's end they have a plot and are off to work on a script. In a few more weeks, they'll be able to film.
"Whenever we have these brain-storming sessions, I think, `Let's film it now,' " Belsley says.
In the basement of Whittemore Hall, three cameras are focused on the set: a living room in a college apartment complex, complete with Pepsi cans and Nerf hoop.
Belsley walks in and looks around.
"We have a real set!" she says.
Around the perimeter, resident advisers, called in to be the audience for this skit, are talking about spring break, boyfriends and the film.
"They told me to dress like a college student," Dan Owens said. "I said, `Like a nice sweater or something?' and they said, `No, like a college student.' "
He chose jeans and a green T-shirt, and the color wins him a spot in front of the camera during a question-and-answer session later in the program.
Bedard stands in a corner, swearing up and down that she usually doesn't wear this much makeup.
"I'm overdoing the makeup thing because the last time I didn't and I came out pale," she said.
Today's program is titled "A Night to Remember - or Forget."
Plot summary: Belsley plays a very drunk college student who goes to a party, meets a guy and sleeps with him, only to find later that she has a sexually transmitted disease.
The rest of the show answers questions about the dangers of unprotected sex and how alcohol can inhibit judgement.
The scene begins.
"Hi, what's your name?" Wayne Grinwis, playing the pickup artist, approaches Belsley.
She looks at Tracy Dyson, the grant administrator. "What is my name?"
"You're Carrie."
"OK."
They run through a rehearsal, smoothly.
Underwood pokes her head out of the production booth. "Cut the giggling, just a little," she suggests. There needs to be more solemnity, a trace of fear.
"We're clear."
Fifteen minutes later, the skit is over. Belsley is crying and Bedard is hugging her.
On the set, the camera operators are touched.
"Boy, I really feel like a jerk," Grinwis says from the back of the room. He instructs the people who will be asking questions in the next scene: "Hey, whenever you refer to me in the skit, say `Wayne's character,' not Wayne. It makes me look better."
In all, Tech students will pare the footage down to three hours on alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases and related issues. Lifestyle choices, Underwood calls them.
They hope to have a premiere in mid-April.
"I want them to wear prom dresses and boas - the whole bit," Underwood said. But the cast, so far, is holding out for blue jeans.
The shows will be a part of a residence hall program and should be on Tech's television station by year's end, Dyson says. She's hoping some local television stations will pick up the programs, as well.
The goal, she says, "is education - we wanted to give the students some information they can use, and maybe they'll make better decisions for themselves."
The programs followed by frank discussion.
"We wanted something they could see themselves in, to bring it home to them," Dyson said.
Something needs to, she says.
According to a 1991 survey taken by the health education office, more students knew the facts about AIDS than the facts about alcohol.
"Nobody told them how much they could drink," Underwood said. "They didn't know that the birth control pill makes women more prone to the effects of alcohol. I talked to a couple of women last week who thought there was the same amount of alcohol in wine coolers as beer."
Wine coolers have a higher alcoholic content.
Another survey, taken by the State Council of Higher Education, showed that about a third of Virginia's college students drink.
Students who don't drink alcohol have said they stay away from it for health and career reasons, Underwood said. So by focusing on the way life choices relate to the future, more students may be reached.
"For instance, you can't get a job in a bank if you're convicted for having a phony ID," Underwood said. "You can't get a job in government. Kids don't know that - at least, not enough of them."