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A high school film crew documents some troubling answers while exploring accessibility.
You feel a shy tap on your shoulder as you make a quick stop at the mini-mart. A sweet-faced girl looks up at you with those big baby blues and thrusts a $20 bill toward you. “Would you buy me 12-pack of Coors?”
How realistic is this “shoulder tap” scenario? That’s one of the things teenage volunteers at the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Coalition, or ADAP, are trying to find out with their new documentary project about alcohol accessibility.
The video, which began filming last week, asks teens frank questions like, “How easy it is to get a fake ID? Have you ever tried alcohol? How easy it is to get alcohol?” and more.
While filmmakers Nico Constantinedes, Ed Santee and Kevin Spracher, all seniors at San Marcos High, admitted the group of kids being filmed was somewhat self-selecting; they said they still got some frank, and potentially incriminating, answers from teen participants.
The first question asked of everyone was whether they wanted to be anonymous, in which case their face would be obscured in the documentary and their name would not be used. And then there was the other carrot: “Free food and community service hours for doing almost nothing,” as Spracher put it.
Along with being interviewed for the documentary, teens enjoyed a live DJ and tried on “beer goggles” that approximated the effects of drinking varying degrees of alcohol.
“Whoa, I can barely see,” San Marcos senior Sadie Carlin said as she tried on the goggles that approximated a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, the equivalent of two drinks, according to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving volunteer who manned the beer goggle demonstration.
Approximately 40 youth from local senior and junior high schools showed up to participate, said Jeff Hurley, ADAP coordinator. They were partially enticed by raffle prizes donated by places like Magic Mountain, Hurricane Harbor, Subway, In-N-Out, Zodo’s, Fatburger, Pizza Mizza and Jamba Juice; the opportunity to hang out with friends; and, of course, to help make an important statement about alcohol issues in our community.
The ADAP crew will continue to work on its film in collaboration with the city of Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation Department and local law enforcement. The group plans to show the documentary at local schools when it’s complete.