A poignant, short video about the dangers of being over-tired on the job earned a pair of McNair secondary students first place in the Grade 11-12 category of the 11th annual WorkSafeBC Student Safety Video Contest.
Grade 12 students Joe Rose and Max Blanche, who have been friends since Grade 8, produced the two-minute clip called Overtime which focuses on a young construction worker, played by Rose, who gets progressively tired during his weekly work/life routine.
Rose’s character begins the clip on an upbeat note, happily waking up, brushing his teeth, picking out his clothes, chatting to a fellow transit rider at the bus stop bench, going about his work day on a construction site after picking up his safety helmet, then coming home at the end of the day to feed his cat and then go to bed.
The cycle, filmed by Blanche, is repeated several times. But with each repetition Rose’s character becomes more disengaged with his surroundings as accumulated fatigue takes hold. He rises a little slower in the morning, tooth brushing lacks conviction, choosing clothes becomes a muddle, commuting chat decreases, and workplace safety habits decrease to the point that one day he makes the fatal mistake of not wearing his safety helmet.
The rest of the scenes show an empty bed, a rack of clothes without an owner, a bus stop bench with one lonely commuter, and a cat with no owner to feed it.
It ends with the tag line “Sleep is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”
The impact is significant, said Theresa Watts, theatre teacher at McNair, who has had both Rose and Blanche as students since they were in Grade 9.
“Their peers are blown away by the work they do together,” Watts said. “They have set the bar so high. They are also very stubborn. I’ve tangled with them several times because they have a set vision of what they want to accomplish and a path all set out of how to get there.”
Their winning entry came with a $500 prize to divide between them, and $2,000 for their school.
More than 122 students took part in the contest, submitting 55 videos from 17 schools throughout the province.
Susan Bai, Alexandra Yu and Alice Lu from Richmond secondary placed second in the Grade 11-12 category with their animated video Impairment at work. The second place team also received $500 in prize money, while the school received $1,500.
Watts said Rose and Blanche’s high calibre of work is demonstrated by the fact both have been accepted into college programs that have small enrolment intakes and plenty of competition.
Watts said Rose will be studying acting at Langara’s Studio 58 program which has just 16 students per term, while Blanche will be among the nine accepted into Langara’s film program.
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