Adina’s Deck Premiere in Modesto

I posted a blog entry over at the PacRimX blog about my first viewing Adina’s Deck last December. This first student focused half hour film was in the tradition of the ‘After School Specials‘ of my youth. Each episode covers an important issue for technology savvy teens. The creators of this series wanted to focus on girls (which was expanded in episodes two and three). Episode one was about cyber bullying.

I had the pleasure of attending the premiere of all three episodes (the year old episode one, and the first showings of episodes two and three) in this series week before last. The premiere was right here in Modesto, California at the State Theater. The event was attended by many of the actors and actresses that appeared in the films along with the two responsible for the films; Debbie Heimowitz and Jason Aziocri.

The two new episodes focused on other important topics related to student use of the Internet. Episode Two focused on online dating and predators. Episode Three was on the issues surrounding plagiarism. Both were of equal, if not higher, production value as the first one in the Adina’s Deck series.

After the showing they had the student actors up on stage for a roundtable discussion about the series and the issues presented. It was apparent from this that there was not much discussion or planning prior to the premiere and the discussion was a bit light on the issues.

I went into this premiere thinking that these videos might be good for 8^th – 11^th grade audiences. I think I’ve adjusted that down to 7^th – 9^th grades. I took my family and asked my 16 year old triplet boys their opinion after the show and they confirmed my impression on who the target audience might be.

I did not have a chance to talk to Debbie or Jason after the show. I am curious if there are plans to license these videos to schools for streaming to their classrooms internally to the district network. I am not interested in buying a bunch of DVD’s, as they would likely be lost very quickly.

If I find out about pricing plans or options for schools I will make another post on this. In the meantime, you can get more info at the official Adina’s Deck website. You can also see some trailers and other videos posted to Debbie Heimowitz’s YouTube page.