Blog # 2

1. Overall, how did your group's pitch go? -- reflect and evaluate.
2. Is your messsage of public/community interest?
3. Who is your target audience and how will your form/style appeal to them?

1. Our pitch went really well, in my opinion. Our group was excited to deliver our ideas to the class, the teachers, Alex and John. We rehearsed a few times the two days prior to pitching the PSA idea. We received great feedback, especially from John. Walker also had a comment that we thought about: making it more interesting for a audience. We felt good about our ideas, and for the most part, kids seemed to agree that it was a relevant issue in our society.

2. YES. Our topic targets a specific age group: High school and college students; prevalent people in our society. Our video includes side affects of a presription drug that can get extremely out of ontrol when abused. People don't usually hear about negative affects of drugs unless they're illegal. As a high school student, I've always heard about how terrible heroin, meth, crack cocaine, and other illegal drugs are, but never about how life threatening prescription drugs can be when abused. I didn't know that kids who use prescription ADHD medication to party harder, get high, study for longer periods of time while staying focused, lose weight, and stay awake and get addicted to the prescription are endangering their lives. ADHD medication, specifically Aderol, when abused, kills the connections in your brain that is described as the "happy center". Once those connections are broken, they are unable to reform, permanently. This means that the abuser has pushed their brain into depression that will not go away. Hospitals see young adults (around 16yrs old - 22yrs old) who think they are having a heart attack, but it's their increased heart beat from Aderol abuse.

3. Our target audience: High school and college students who are feeling stressed and are considering turning to drugs to help them complete all of their work or have more fun. Our form is a fast-forward "what if". A normal student, making a decision. When they decide to try the prescription, a snap-shot of what the students life will be like in the next few weeks occurs: at high speed, zipping through. At first it seems fun, but then the student is addicted and over dosing on the drug and it quickly spirals out of control: The life is slowing, turning black and white, music is warping, and the student is unhappy and their life is in danger. The audience sees what would happen if a specific decision was made and how it would play out. Since it goes so fast, the audience will only understand afterwards what has happened. The overall affect of Aderol abuse is terrible. Hopefully it will be exciting and informational at the same time.