Imagine having a commercial featured for the Super Bowl. Klamath Union High School senior Ashley DeGroot was able to experience that feeling last weekend during Super Bowl LVI.
Several students from the Media Design program at Klamath Union entered the KOBI-TV NBC5 Super Positive Video Contest. CTE Media Design instructor Dan Stearns let students of his class know they had to watch the pregame show of the Super Bowl in order to see who won the contest.
DeGroot was sitting in her living room with members of her family and as the screen went black, noticed a familiar sound.
“My mom and I were watching it and started to recognize local commercials. Then I saw mine and my jaw dropped and I was like ‘gosh.’ Immediately, Dan called and congratulated me,” DeGroot said.
No, her commercial was not played nationally during the big game but along with being shown in the pregame, it was seen after Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp won the Most Valuable Player award. Her commercial, named “A Different World,” which is part of a longer video she made called “Two Moons.”
The longer video also received its noteworthy recognition and received third place in the You Matter to Klamath Youth Suicide Prevention Video Contest.
The video, starring Addie Morehouse along with DeGroot, features a high school student (Morehouse) who feels like they lost their connection with what is around them.
The video includes clever editing that has students walking backwards as Morehouse is alone walking forward, referencing time passing by.
The student expresses what she is going through internally. Feelings of abandonment, loneliness and hopelessness, all are within her. The student uses the quote “we are on two moons that divide us. Two moons that disconnected.”
DeGroot then appears, putting her hand on her classmate and shares with her the embrace of a hug.
“Once Dan told me about making a video for suicide prevention, I knew that was something I wanted to do because I have dealt with depression and anxiety,” DeGroot said. “I don’t want to say that is my purpose, like kind of, but I feel like helping others is my thing.”
DeGroot began working on her video before the winter break. She emailed classmates in the media design program to see if they wanted to be a part of the filming.
The biggest challenge in the recording came when DeGroot noticed Morehouse. There were several takes done to make sure the scene looked authentic. The students going backwards was another obstacle.
The video helped DeGroot realize what she might want to do in her future. The Klamath Union senior is curious about psychology.
“I talked to a lot of psychologists about it and they helped me so much. From my experience and knowing how it felt, I was that person. I do not want anyone else to feel like this,” DeGroot said. “If they do, I want them to know they are loved and needed in the world. It is hard and somedays you really don’t see an end to pain or to whatever demons you are fighting but there is an end. I wanted to shine that light on people and hopefully reach people that needed to hear it.”
Bringing animation to KU
Fellow Klamath Union senior Chase Weaver finished right behind DeGroot and came out with a second-place finish in the Super Positive Video Contest.
Weaver’s video earned him a $2,000 scholarship, while DeGroot earned $3,000.
Weaver’s video, named “Meow,” was the only animated video submitted.
His video tells the story of the day-to-day journey from the perspective of a stray cat. The cat gets soaked in water as he tries to cross the street before he runs into a store and steals a fish.
As the cat licks his lips and is ready to enjoy his food, he hears kittens crying, who are noticeably starving. The cat enters the cardboard box of the kittens and shares his fish.
“I am over here, the one animater that I know of in this school. You know what, everyone else is recording themselves in small video clips, so why don’t I make an animation,” Weaver said. “It was the only thing I could think of for the 30-second video. Because it would be really hard to get a cat to run across the road with cars.”
As expected for making an animated commercial, Weaver required hours upon hours of brainstorming, drawing and editing his project.
Everything that appeared in his video was drawn by Weaver and made into a video. The original ideas came from sticky notes he drew of and drew images just like a flipbook.
“I took pictures of the sticky notes and put them into an animation program and spaced it all out over 30 seconds,” Weaver said.
Eventually, he reanimated the images into higher frame rates and repeated the process until the picture was right.
In all, Weaver used 28 different frames for his video.
“It is just if you want the cat to glide over the pavement slowly or skit or have more of a quick walk; that took five hours,” he said. “In certain cases, you have to decrease the frame rate and hope it does not change much.”
Weaver is enthused his efforts and his high placing can eventually lead to Klamath Union starting up an animation class in future.
“I think Dan can make it happen,” Weaver said. “We have a very good likelihood of being the top (media program) in all of southern Oregon.”
Aguilar-FloresJ@kfalls.k12.or.us