Underage drinking documentary wins Emmy
BY KAITLYN COLES FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE
Friday, July 10, 2009 4:02 AM EDT
Deborah Hoch and her Emmy Award.
Seekonk's Deborah Hoch's program captures Boston/New England award
SEEKONK -- A local resident is an Emmy winner.
Deborah Hoch's documentary about underage drinking, "The Impact of Your Choice: Underage Drinking and Reckless Driving," won an Emmy at the 32nd National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Boston/New England Emmy Awards Ceremony for the Best Societal Concerns program.
The film had previously won four Bronze Telly Awards for outstanding video in education, social issues, documentary and education at the 29th Annual Telly Awards last year.
The documentary was produced as part of Megastar Productions, Inc., a nonprofit corporation.
Hoch came up with the idea of the topic of underage drinking and reckless driving from crashes a couple of years ago in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. She wanted to research different ways of approaching the issue in hopes of getting different messages out to those young and old.
"My goal was to change the person who already made the choice not to drink," said Hoch.
The production is an educational documentary that interviews survivors, an offender, and the families of those victims.
The documentary reveals the emotional roller coaster that the families of the victims have been on as they remember life before the crash, the choice that the victim had made, and their lives after the crash.
Hoch first started researching for the documentary in 2006, and began filming in 2007. It was first shown at the Providence Country Day School as a two-day function where the students watched it one day and the public the next.
The film was first shown on Rhode Island's PBS station WSBE in May 2008.
The documentary has since been used in high school health programs, and was adopted by the Massachusetts Police Chief Association for one of their programs.
The program was directed and produced by Hoch. Jim Karpeichik was the director of photography, the show was written by Heather Moreau and it featured the original music composition, "Choices," by Tama Girard.
Another of Hoch's productions, "The Impact of Your Choice: Breast Health Awareness - When is Too Young," will be shown as part of breast health series at the Rhode Island International Film Festival on Sunday, Aug. 9 at the Colombus Theatre from 6 to 8 p.m. in Providence.
The production will educate women about breast cancer and the importance of knowing risk factors to help save lives.
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Mark M. Farinella wrote on Jul 10, 2009 12:41 PM:
ceekal wrote on Jul 10, 2009 12:14 PM:
In other news; I won an Oscar for Best Actor.
Given to me by the New England Association of awesome movies in the category of home movies my brother shot. "