About Streets, Art, SAFE - Streets Are For Everyone

STREETS, ART, SAFE -- EDUCATION IN THE ARTS

2018's WINNERS

SEE ALL WINNING 2018 PSA's

COMPETITION REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.
Registration will open for the 2019/2020 season in October 2019

Streets, Art, SAFE
4th Annual Film Competition
2018/2019 Year
Information and Registration

OUR MISSION: The mission of the Streets, Art, SAFE Film Competition is to aim to improve the quality of life for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers alike by working to reduce traffic caused fatalities to zero.

Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE)

In major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, millions of drivers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians share bustling thoroughfares. Unfortunately, per the LA Department of Transportation, Los Angeles is the deadliest American city in which to walk, bike or drive. According to LA Weekly, a staggering 48 percent of crashes are hit-and-runs.

This may seem unbelievable, but Damian Kevitt lived it. On a routine Sunday morning bike ride in February 2013, a driver struck him and never stopped -- dragging him nearly a quarter mile under the car, from the streets onto and down the freeway. Fortunately (and almost unbelievably), he survived. In the process, he lost his right leg and gained a new mission: to prevent future traffic safety issues through education and outreach. In March 2015, he founded Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization to accomplish that mission.

In the few years it has been in existence, SAFE has accomplished much. Through outreach and work with city officials, the organization helped to drop the incidence of hit-and-run crimes by 16 percent in a year (per LAPD report). It has been responsible for legislation implemented in multiple cities across the entire state of California. SAFE has also reached hundreds of millions on traffic safety issues through media, PSA billboards and direct contact.

Creativity and Change Through Public Service Announcements (PSAs)

Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are an outstanding form of outreach, especially in large, arts-focused cities like Los Angeles. In addition, they are informative and creative which makes them an excellent teaching tool for young adults.

SAFE created a contest amongst high school students to produce a PSA about traffic safety issues. The purpose of this program is two-fold:

Create awareness of traffic safety importance in the minds of young adults by encouraging them to take responsibility for teaching others about traffic safety.
Foster artistic creativity and give students the opportunity to develop film and visual arts expertise.

This contest is called Streets, Art, SAFE.

Supporting Teachers and Mentoring Students

Making a PSA is no small task. This challenge is exactly what makes this competition fun and exciting! To help participating students understand the assignment, SAFE provides:

A list of 23 PSA topics to choose from
An educator's guide with lessons to help teach students how to make PSAs
A flow-chart on the production steps
Examples of professional PSAs to emulate
Free resources and workshops students can attend to learn more about specific aspects of filmmaking
Industry experts are also available to mentor students. This includes critiquing and providing constructive criticism for improvement on scripts, storyboards, rough edits and, ultimately, their finished products.

Judging Criteria

In addition to mentoring students, film industry specialists serve as the blue ribbon panel that judge and help choose the winning PSAs. They give each PSA a score of 1 to 10 in the following six categories:

Script Originality/creativity
Cinematography
Make-up
Acting
Post special effects/graphics
Editing
Funniest PSA (optional)
Scariest PSA (optional)

Street safety experts also judge the PSAs on the following three categories:

Script originality/creativity
Research and accuracy of traffic safety stats and facts
Effectiveness of street safety message

Awards, Prizes, Trophies and Acknowledgements

The competition culminates in a red-carpet Streets, Art, SAFE Awards Ceremony (SAS Awards). Students who submitted PSAs for final judging are presented with a certificate acknowledging their hard work and congratulating them for being a finalist in the competition.

Winning PSAs from each of the Judging Criteria above are showcased on stage and students are awarded trophies by judges, celebrities and civic leaders.

There are three Grand Prize Winners -- Gold, Silver and Bronze -- based on the best overall scores. The student teams, including the teacher who helped to guide the students, are acknowledged with a special trophy and cash prizes awarded to each school arts department. Last year, thousands of dollars were awarded to the winning teams schools.

In addition to all of the above, there are Honorable Mention Awards for those PSAs that were in the running for a top prize and Judge's Choice Awards given by individual judges to their favorite PSAs.

PSA Guidelines and Rules

All PSAs must meet the following criteria:

The treatment must be approved as part of the registration process. The topic of the PSA must be chosen from the list provided by SAFE or specially sanctioned during registration.
No PSA may contain language or content that would prohibit it from being aired on national television.
PSAs must be non-discriminatory. They should not portray any particular ethnicity, gender orientation or religion in a negative light.
PSAs may not exceed 30 seconds in length, including a 4-5 second closing graphic with a SAFE logo and acknowledgement to the sponsors of the program (to be provided by SAFE).
Must not use the word "accident." Instead, these incidents should be referred to as "collisions" or "crashes" which indicates the inherent responsibility of everyone on the streets to create a safe environment.
In the making of a PSA no laws can be broken and no lives can be endangered. Any PSA that violates this will be automatically disqualified.

Suggested Topics

SAFE’s list of recommended PSA topics include:

Drunk driving -- under-aged or adult drinking and driving
Drugged driving -- driving while using recreational drugs like pot
Drugged driving -- driving while on prescription medications like painkillers
Distracted driving -- texting and driving
Distracted driving -- doing other things (eating, putting on makeup, adjusting the radio, watching a map, watching videos, playing games, etc.) while driving.
Distracted driving -- driving tired
Traffic laws -- pedestrian laws
Traffic laws -- bicycling laws
Traffic laws -- driving laws
Traffic laws -- seat belt worn, child car seat safety
Defensive techniques -- for drivers
Defensive techniques -- for bicyclists
Defensive techniques -- for pedestrians
Speeding -- speed and pedestrian or bicycle fatalities
Speeding -- street racing
Safety -- for pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders, etc.
Safety -- for cyclists: wearing a helmet, reflective clothing or using lights
Safety -- for pedestrians: wearing reflective clothing or lights
Safe driving -- in rain, heavy winds or snow
Safe driving -- near parks, schools or around road work
Safe driving -- road rage
Safe roads-- how roads designed for walking, riding and shared transit helps the environment
Safe roads -- how roads can be designed safer for pedestrians, cyclists and cars.

Students are also free to propose their own topics (see Registration Form for details).

Streets, Art, SAFE Schedule

Friday, 1 October 2018: Online registration opens

Thursday, 28 February 2019: Online registration closes, deadline extended due to LAUSD strike.

Friday, 15 February 2019: Script and storyboard submissions mentoring cutoff (suggested but not required to qualify for final submission)

Friday, 15 March 2019: Rough edit submission deadline EXTENDED.

Friday, 12 April 2019: Final submission deadline

Saturday, 18 May 2019 (subject to change): Streets, Art, SAFE Awards Ceremony at the American Film Institute in Hollywood, CA

Questions?: or (844) 884-7233, ext. 804

Quick links