We need your help to make a 60-second movie to fight teen suicide in Wisconsin.
The Franki Moscato Foundation is introducing a contest to inspire students to contribute to the creation of a compelling suicide prevention Public Service Announcement.
With adult involvement (recommended), students are invited to create a story and record a video that will be used to produce a 60-second televised Public Service Announcement (PSA) aimed at preventing teen suicide in Wisconsin.
The winning story will be formally scripted, professionally produced, and broadcast on WBAY-TV and across other Wisconsin television and radio broadcasting networks. The winning team members will be considered for participation in the actual recorded production as actors and extras, depending on the director’s opinions of the story’s requirements.
If you are an adult, a parent, or a teacher, please consider taking on a leadership role for one or more students, offering ideas and encouragement. You might suggest they research adolescent self-harm in Wisconsin to understand the value of their project. They might want to research what a student should do if their friend shares private information about dying intentionally. Let them know that they can come to you for ideas and assistance. At a minimum, please inform your children or students about this contest and the November 1st deadline.
Official Rules:
- Open to any public, private, or home-schooled student(s) in 6th- 12th grade. You must currently live within the state of Wisconsin.
- Only one story/video is allowed per student/team.
- Story ideas must be submitted as a video along with the associated script. The length of the video can exceed 60 seconds to include any verbal descriptions about the story elements. Examples: “The story takes place outside in the park, but we filmed it in the gym; imagine that you see a whole classroom of kids in the background; the stuffed bear is supposed to be a real dog in the kitchen scene.”
- Story ideas can be fun or serious, real or animated. Students may work individually or in teams. Teacher and/or adult participation is recommended but not required.
- Stories must be original ideas/creations.
- The winning story author(s) will relinquish ownership of their work and transfer all rights as property of the Franki Moscato Foundation LLC for production use.
- The final day of submission is NOVEMBER 1st, 2025. (Script and Video upload is at the end of this form.)
- One first-place winner and one runner-up winner will be selected and publicly announced. In the unlikely event that it is realistically impossible to produce the winner’s movie, the runner-up movie will be considered.
Stories will be rated by a panel of judges and scored based on:
- Ability to destigmatize, deglamorize, and discourage teen suicide.
- Creativity and originality.
- Effectiveness of “the message.”
- Believability of the plot.
Story ideas:
- Talking with you really helped me.
- Deliberate kindness reduced her bullying.
- I began to notice signs that something wasn’t right.
- She told so many people, but nobody told an adult.
- How to be a good listener.
- I’m going to make sure that we get through this together.
- To my older self… (telling yourself how to take care of your mental health).
- Suicide is preventable.
- Giving to the hopeless increases self-worth and purpose.
- I can always trust my teacher to help me.
- How to help a friend through a suicidal crisis.
Here are two 60-second examples of Public Service Announcements:
OK. You thought about this a lot. You did some research about teen suicide. You looked at some examples of Public Service Announcements. You discussed with some people what you were thinking of making a movie about. You took the time to script out your film and maybe even drew a storyboard with the shots you wanted. You weren’t satisfied with some shots and re-recorded (again and again) to get everything nice. You created a video with a compelling message to teach how to be kind and/or help prevent teen suicide, and you believe it might win this contest. Thank you!
Now it’s time to enter the contest and upload your video. Good luck! Click the link below.
CONTEST ENTRY APPLICATION
Thank you very much!
Hugs,
Franki