Teens reaching teens
From Half Moon Bay Review,
July
24, 2002, with the publisher's
permission
By Stacy Trevenon
A new film by two Coastside teens reveals the stark contrast between
young people experimenting with drugs and adult addicts, each talking
about experiences they share while living worlds apart.
Over the last two weeks of May and the first week of June, Montara
resident Grat Bodkin, 16, and William Lopez, 18, filmed interviews
with Coastside peers and San Francisco adults, edited the results
into a short film they called "Fix 4 Thought." It is being
shown to recovering addicts and the public.
The thoughts that the film inspires are as stark as its content.
"You see kids, you see addicts, you see where it goes,"
Bodkin said. The project was undertaken under the auspices of the
California Arts Council and Each One Reach One, a playwriting program
founded a few years ago by Montara resident Robin Sohnen that involves
at-risk youth.
An Each One Reach One program was getting under way at Pilarcitos
High School, which Bodkin and Lopez attend. The two were interested
but could not think of a topic for a play. Instead, they suggested
doing a video documentary on drug use
.
Borrowing a video camera from their friend Alex Waddell, the two
began by filming interviews with friends and peers who were experimenting
with drugs or using drugs recreationally.
Then they headed for San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood
to hold similar interviews with longtime drug users.
The interviews were riveting. The youth lightheartedly talk about
their flirtations with drugs, while the adults recall broken homes,
cold parents and hopelessness.
There is also an interview with a San Francisco police officer taking
candidly about things he sees on the beat.
The point of the film, the two said, was to highlight the contrast
between "kids just starting their use and people who had lost
their lives over it, and ended up on the street," Bodkin explained.
He added that he was struck by another contrast: the youth who "said
they would just do one thing at a time, and the addicts who promised
themselves that they would do that" same thing.
The experience was a sober one, the two young men said. "It
was kind of saddening, to know that it can happen to (peers) though
they think it won't," Lopez said. But they feel it makes a
useful point for young viewers. "People relate better to people
their own age level," Bodkin observed. We hear things on the
news, we see them on TV, but when we tell them ourselves, it has
a greater impact. "Seeing the contrast makes you think of yourself."
Apparently administrators at Each One Reach One and the Arts Council
thought so. The film is being shown to youth groups through both
the Half Moon Bay and Redwood City branches of El Centro de Libertad
substance abuse centers. That's enough to inspire them to try it
again. They have plans, the two said, to make a follow-up video
on the topic of recovery. "Films made by people our age have
more of an impact," Bodkin said. "If we made a movie and
even a couple of people liked it, why stop?"
© Half Moon Bay Review
hosted by www.each1reach1.org
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