Public Service Announcements

This week I took pictures from the Dayhab program run by United Cerebral Palsy in Watertown and worked on Public Service Announcements (PSA).  The pictures will be part of the photo-documentary that will be used at events as a background display or for presentations.

Radio and Television PSA
Writing a PSA is a big challenge and I found myself largely unprepared for the amount of work that goes into them. I have written up six different PSAs. The first three are for radio and television and range from :10, :15, and :30 seconds. Each PSA written for television needs to be transcribed for being aired on the radio. The transcribing involves placing emphasis on certain words, separating abbreviations with dashes, and placing commas and periods in order to create places for the commentator to take a breath. For example:

For television
Join United Cerebral Palsy of MetroBoston, Sunday June 5^th, for its annual ‘Walk and Roll’ at DCR’s Castle Island. To learn more, log on to www.ucpboston.org.

Transcribed For Radio
Join UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY OF METROBOSTON, Sunday June fifth, for its annual WALK AND ROLL at D-C-Rs CASTLE ISLAND. To learn more, log on to w-w-w dot U-C-P-BOSTON dot org.

After writing both, I then have to go through the process of finding out how many characters with spaces exist and recording the number under the PSA. The next part of the process is timing how long it takes to read the PSA so that it fits the required amount of time. This is a challenge because it must be read clearly and properly so that a listener can clearly hear the most important information.

The next challenge is figuring out how to put in order the most important information. What I worked on in this specific PSA, which was the shortest at :10 seconds, ordering the information by placing the name of the organization first followed by the date of the event and the event name. This is followed by the location and where more information can be found.

The listener has now heard the most essential information for the event: Who  is putting it on, When it is, What it is, Where it is, and How to learn more information. 

The whole process requires several re-writes. I spent the whole day Thursday and most of the day Friday re-organizing these PSAs in terms of order, grammar, and content.

Newspaper PSA
Writing a newspaper PSA is another challenge in itself. In this case I am writing three more PSAs of varying length that follow the same formula as the TV and Radio PSAs. In this case, however, I am not transcribing each PSA I write, I just have to write one for each length. Like the other PSAs, I have to be very careful with grammar, wording, and content. In both forms of PSAs, I had to take the Walk pamphlets and look at the UCP website in order to get the most important information. I highlighted the name of the walk, the date of the walk, and other important information following the Who, When, What, Where, and How formula. Reading each PSA for these five components is essential. If I can read each one and know the answers to these five questions then I know I have accomplished my goals for the PSA.


The Photo-Documentary
The Photo-documentary is going to be used as a tool for marketing at events or exhibits for UCP of MetroBoston. This week I took pictures at the Dayhab facility in Watertown. This was an exciting opportunity to get to meet the consumers, as well as capture some of the great activities the consumers can take advantage of. The Dayhab consists of two buildings: one building is for consumers who have more functional abilities. They are very independent, but require assistance in some areas such as writing or using communication skills. The other building hosts consumers who are less functional and require more hands-on activities and support.

It was very hard taking photos in both buildings because you have to capture the consumers in a specific way. You have to be careful to not include photos of consumers with their eyes closed, mouths open, bibs on, "scary" smiles or scowls, drool, or looking as if in pain. I hope to be able to post examples of a good and bad photo.