March, 1997 Central Community Debates Issue of Ebonics
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Media Student Produce Award Winning Anti-Smoking Ad
By Richard Ijeh
Central Media students recently won an award for producing an outstanding television commercial designed to discourage smoking. Richard Spears, Robby Brown, and Kevin Ginyard collaborated with group leader Tamir Muhammad on the project, which was part of a competition involving twenty schools from across the state.
The minute long commercial depicts a man smoking a cigarette with the word, "Life," written on it. The cigarette soon burned away. "This image represents the way smoking can eat away life, " said Muhammad.
The ad then depicts a smoke free person progressing from childhood to a happy productive adult life. The commercial suggests that the individual would be able to enjoy a healthy, happy life without being hounded by any smoking related illness.
"The reason we did this commercial is that we felt it was very important to influence others in a positive way on the topic of smoking," said Muhammad.
Muhammad and Ginyard, the two main participants, were assisted by Mr. Tony Pijar. "He gave his input on what he thought would be effective. He also showed us various special effects and different angles to shoot scenes. He inspired us by explaining we would be joining in the effort to reduce the amount of people who die from lung cancer," said Ginyard.
Muhammad believes the commercial won the award because they put a lot of time and effort into it.
"Tamir showed great leadership ability in bringing the project to fruition. He came up with the ideas and I just modified them a little. It's because of his hard work Central took first place out of twenty schools. It was a great commercial and it was fun because our purpose was a good one," said Pijar.
