“We wanted to prove something, we wanted to do something important” said sophomore, Ethan Howard, co-producer of a suicide prevention video that made it to the finals of the PA Youth Suicide Initiative’s PSA Contest with his partner in crime, Zack Palmer.

Howard and Palmer are both a part of Mrs. Houck’s Broadcast and Video Production class. When they were assigned the project, they were given the option of submitting it for the contest. They tried to write a script that fit the guidelines of the contest and prevented suicide at the same time.

Online voting took place through February 22. Many classes and students went online to support their fellow students by voting for their suicide prevention video.

“I honestly didn’t think we’d make it to the finals but I was really happy when we did,” said Howard. Overall, Howard and Palmer have been announced finalists for the contest and their video finished with over 300 likes, even though they did not win.

“We really just wanted to spread awareness,” said Palmer. Palmer and Howard’s video conveyed a student who had been suffering from depression, but his friend didn’t notice, he thought everything was fine. “We wanted to make it seem real,” said Howard.

Both students claimed that they wanted to make this video mean something because they have both suffered from depression. “I suffered from depression when I was younger and I wanted to take what I was feeling and what I felt and put it into Ethan’s character in the video. I wanted to show the audience how I was feeling and how a lot of people feel who suffer from depression,” said Palmer.

“Personally, I have suffered from depression and when something is wrong, I have certain friends who can tell right away and I have others who don’t notice. You can’t always realize it when people have depression. So we wanted this video to show that,” said Howard.

“I wanted people to started to understand how people like me feel, and to realize how important it is to reach out to someone who might be depressed. I really just hope this video helps others to realize that,” said Howard.
You can watch Zack and Ethan’s video here: