Wis. Film Urges Teens Not to Drive Drunk
May 09--WEST SALEM -- Occasional sniffles that rippled through the audience at a private premiere of an anti-drunken-driving movie indicated the producers' success in depicting how a deadly crash sends waves of grief through a community.
The film "PAUSE" unveiled convincing performances by four West Salem High School students and a host of other Coulee region actors in the premiere for volunteers Tuesday at the Marie W. Heider Center for the Arts in West Salem.
The film, which will be premiered publicly at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Onalaska High School Performing Arts Center, is the product of The Pause Project. It is a partnership among SoundFrame Studios, the Onalaska Hilltopper Rotary Club, the Onalaska fire and police departments and Gundersen Health System. It features fire, police and medical personnel cast in their real-life roles.
Co-creators Bill Kult, Scott Davies and Corey Yonkovich devised the three-year project from concept to screen to extend beyond traditional mock car crashes.
"The kids know mock crashes are staged," said Davies, a member of the Hilltopper Rotary Club. "We wanted to add the effect on others beyond those injured -- the effect on families, the effect on friends, the effect on schools, the effect on emergency personnel and the community. You really can't do that with a mock car crash."
The project's title comes from the intent to encourage people to pause and think before driving drunk.
"Is it worth driving?" said Yonkovich, a lieutenant with the Onalaska Fire Department. "Or, if they pause and call Mom and Dad and say, 'I messed up and a need a ride.' If they do that, they might get in trouble for a couple of weeks. But if they drive and kill somebody, the consequences will be with them for the rest of their life."
"PAUSE" drafted real-life police and fire officials, ambulance and hospital personnel and members of the jail and court system to show the aftermath.
The crash into a tree was filmed at Rowe Park in Onalaska, where Gundersen Health System ambulance crews and MedLink helicopter were enlisted to treat and transport the patients.
"It was filmed in all of the places you don't want to go to with people you don't want to meet," said Kult, a former Onalaska firefighter who now is a media specialist with the Onalaska Fire Department and owns SoundFrame Studios.
"Kids don't think of the 15 to 20 minutes of horror while their parents drive to the hospital," he said.
The actors agreed, saying their roles became all too real for the movie, which shows the boys drinking before and during a homecoming dance but the girls refusing to partake.
"When we filmed the first car crash scene, it was cold, and I was shaking -- not because of the cold but because it felt so real," said Julian Grosskopf, a West Salem senior who channeled his real-life persona as an all-conference goalie for the West Salem/Bangor hockey team.
Offered a college scholarship in the opening scene, Grosskopf's character, Alex, ends up bloodied, handcuffed and in jail, where he is told that his girlfriend died in the crash.
Dazed, he agonizes in a cell in the La Crosse County Jail before his trial, where District Attorney Tim Gruenke prosecutes him and Circuit Judge Scott Horne sentences him to eight years -- three in prison and five on supervised release.
"The scariest part was getting arrested," Grosskopf said. "I don't ever want to experience that."
West Salem junior Maggie Solberg plays Alex's girlfriend, Hannah, and the film follows her during her emergency treatment on MedLink en route to Gundersen, where a trauma team struggles in vain to save her.
After she heard the time of death declared, Solberg said, "It was kind of freaky, thinking they're actually making the decision about me dead as a person. It was so surreal to think that people were crying over me."
The film features the stark contrast between Hannah's injuries, treatment and death as it flashes from those scenes to those of her parents playing Scrabble at home at the same time. After an Onalaska officer comes to the house and tells them Hannah has been in a crash, her parents drive frantically to Gundersen. Portrayed by acting/humorist duo Todd and Lisa Olson, the parents try to contact their daughter on her cellphone, which lies on the pavement at the crash scene, ringing into the deadly night.
With sons of their own, the Olsons said they were able to identify with the anguish if that happened in their own lives.
The creators say the goal of their 45-minute movie, which editor/director Steve Londre boiled down from 45 hours of film, is to have everyone identify with the peril of drunken driving.
Judge Horne, who was in the audience Tuesday, said, "The focus hits the nail on the head -- to encourage people to think about the consequences of what they do. It is very realistic. If people don't watch this and think twice, something's wrong."
It is hard to gauge the cost of producing the movie, with so many in-kind donations of fire and police personnel and Gundersen's allowing use of its employees, ambulances, helicopter and hospital, Davies said.
The cost probably surpassed $100,000, including the in-kind donations, said Davies, a Baird financial adviser with the Klos Davies Group.
The next step is marketing the film to schools, driver's ed programs, insurance companies and others, Davies said. Its individual retail price will be $20, with commercial rates for businesses and clubs that would buy it to donate to schools and organizations, he said.
The project exceeded expectations, Davies said, telling the cast and crew after the premiere, "I do believe you will save some lives with this movie."
"Is it worth driving? Or, if they pause and call Mom and Dad and say,
'I messed up and a need a ride.' If they do that, they might get in trouble for a couple of weeks.
But if they drive and kill somebody, the consequences will be with them for the rest of their life." Corey Yonkovich, a lieutenant with the Onalaska Fire Department
Copyright 2014 - La Crosse Tribune, Wis.
