The Reality of Realism

Over the past few weeks, our team has been working on an anti-heroin series of videos for the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office aimed at students and parents. The reality of the topic is tough. I know I personally had to stop when writing the scripts to compose myself. Everyone on our team wrote at least one script. A few of them are based on reality. One of mine, is based on someone that I was close to. The reality is that heroin kills, and the job of educating teenagers about this is not an easy one.

When you have to spend weeks reviewing scripts, gathering props, scouting locations, auditioning talent and eventually shooting and editing the videos, words like "where did the syringe go?" and "did you bring the drugs with you?" start to seem like every day conversations. But the fact is, these are NOT every day conversations in the lives of most people, yet they ARE every day conversations in the lives of some. When I stop to think about that, I get sad. I think about how we can laugh about the fact that I have learned how to use face-paint to draw track marks on someone's arm. But when I think about the many young people that are living with REAL track marks, I want to throw up.

Every time we take on a new project, we learn something about a topic we never really thought we'd ever explore - installing a boiler in a Manhattan high-rise for one. But this topic...it really scares me. This is our third project with an anti-heroin focus. I really hope we are doing something to help this epidemic. I hope that someone sees one of our videos and thinks "I don't want to be that person" and stays away from this garbage. Or someone who is using, watches a video and gets help. If that's what we can do through video, then we've done something good. And that's what matters. That's reality.

The reality is it can affect any one of us. As our videos will show you (still in production - so nothing to see yet), heroin addiction doesn't discriminate by race, income, location or gender. One title - "No One Is Immune To Drug Addiction" rings true through all of our videos. The lesson to be learned is: pay attention. It took submerging myself in this topic for the past few weeks to really open my eyes to what is happening. Of course, I always knew there was a problem. I've never been one to try drugs or "experiment." But it has affected me in my life. And it took getting this close to it to truly understand its effect.

So, this blog post may not be production related. It is different from most of my other "self promotion" or "DIY Video" type posts, but it is important for me to get these words out there. Students in Monmouth County and elsewhere will have an opportunity to make a choice...they can watch these videos and realize the reality of heroin, or they can chose to ignore it. Hopefully, we're creating something that cannot be ignored.

Darcie King
Executive Producer
E Video Productions, LLC