Kyian Robertson is rarely without his camera.
So when the 18-year-old Battlefield High School student was given an opportunity to make a film for the Great American NO BULL video contest, the decision was easy.
As a member of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance, the subject of bullying, and more specifically cyberbullying, was a familiar one to Robertson and his friends.
“I think it was a great subject for us to tackle,” he said. Although Battlefield “has a pretty great no bullying policy . . . it’s something we’ve been faced with.”
Last week, Robertson’s video, “Just Words,” was one of 15 selected for the Great American NO BULL Challenge Teen Video Awards. Winners will be announced at a red-carpet event in San Francisco on July 21.
The 15 were chosen by a panel of judges, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, “Bully” director Lee Hirsch and Seventeen magazine editor-in-chief Ann Shoket, from 270 videos submitted by middle and high school students across the country, challenge president and founder Shawn Edgington said.
Robertson’s 3-minute, 48-second video — the only one to make the cut from Virginia, Maryland or the District — features Battlefield senior Brigitta Blair as a high school student struggling with cyberbullying until she realizes, like the video’s title says, that it’s just words.
Blair, who Robertson said has a “hidden passion for acting,” said she has been a victim of cyberbullying and had an emotional connection with the project.
“The video sends the message that your peers don’t think this is good. It doesn’t make you look cool, look bigger. It makes you look senseless,” Robertson said.
The mission of the video contest and the NO BULL campaign is to “tackle cyberbullying at the peer level,” Edgington said.
According to National Center for Education Statistics figures from the 2008-09 School Crime Supplement, 28 percent of middle and high school students reported being bullied, and 6 percent were cyberbullied.
Through the videos, teens are making bullying “socially unacceptable, kind of like smoking,” she said.
Although the video was based on Robertson’s vision — he shot, directed and edited the final product — he said the writing was a collaboration with his alliance friends.
“One of our main goals is to create a safe and better school for those who are in it. Promoting a video that discusses cyberbullying, and how it can be stopped, even furthers our mission,” said Anna Beardsley, president of the Gay Straight Alliance.
During the Teen Video Awards ceremony — a black-tie event — eight winners will be announced. Prizes include a $10,000 production deal, scholarships, video cameras and a trip to the Sundance Film Festival.
“I didn’t fully trust my capability, but I still succeeded,” Robertson said. With a prize of attending Sundance within reach, Robertson is a bit more confident. “To have something I’ve made make it to that caliber would be just phenomenal.”
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