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Films with a message: Students create anti-smoking, healthy eating videos

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A talking deer.

People exploding.

These are just a couple of scenes from the anti-smoking and healthy eating videos created by local kids.

And no, the deer doesn't get eaten.

The videos are part of the state's Healthy South Carolina Challenge School Video Contest.

Students from around Beaufort County, including some from Bluffton High and Hilton Head Island Middle schools, have entered the challenge.

At the middle school, making a video for the contest was an assignment for seventh- and eighth-grade students in Megan Hallissey's theater class.

Eighth-grader Adrian Austin wrote and directed a video about the harmful effects of smoking, and hopes his commercial will prevent teenagers from taking up the habit.

The video is dramatic.

"Eventually, one of the people smoking blows up," he said of his commercial.

The most difficult part of the project for Adrian was editing the video. "I ended up working 12 straight hours to finish it," he said.

For Jesse Gavigan of Beaufort, creating the video was a way to have fun. But it became much more for him -- and his family.

Jesse learned about the contest through the Beaufort Boys & Girls Club Teen Center, where he volunteers and his mother, Deborah works.

Jesse was one of more than 120 students who entered the contest in November. His video "Santa" focuses on smoking and healthy eating. He stars in the film with his father James and a talking deer mounted on a wall.

Jesse took second place in November. For his efforts, he won $1,500 and was invited to dinner at the governor's mansion after Gov. Mark Sanford's State of the State address. Challenge director Curry Hagerty said Jesse was the only winner invited to the dinner because his video and the way his parents chose to change their lifestyle were especially inspirational.

"My dad has Type II diabetes and my mom had been smoking since she was 9," Jessesaid. As he made the video, "my dad started eating better and my mom stopped smoking."

Jesse said his parents made efforts to improve their health before, but working on the video together increased their motivation. It also changed his own outlook.

"I've been eating healthier and exercising a lot," he said. "I used to never exercise."

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