By Scott Brinton
The nonprofit Nicole Schiffman Foundation in Merrick recently reached out to the Long Island Crisis Center, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week suicide hotline in Bellmore, to develop a cutting-edge advertising campaign that alerts teens on the fringe that help is available for them.
On Feb. 18, 2007, Schiffman, a lifelong Merokean and a journalism major at the University of Maryland, was on a trip to Arizona to visit her best friend, Carol Kestenbaum of Bellmore. The two were gunned down by a mentally disturbed -- and drug-addicted -- teen who was angry with Kestenbaum because she had told his girlfriend to consider breaking up with him. The killer shot the pair dead in a parking lot in the early morning before committing suicide.
Ever since, the Schiffman family, including Nicole's parents, Ron and Cheryl, and her sister, Lindsey, have raised funds to donate to groups like LICC, which works to help teens before they commit suicide or violent crimes. "Our desire is to reach out to troubled young people to get them the help they need," said Ron.
The Schiffmans wanted to take advantage of TV advertising and the Internet revolution to create a PSA campaign that drew in young people who need help with a combination of old-fashioned story-telling and new-age technology. With the crisis center, the Schiffman foundation hired Bright Weather Productions, run by 20-something producers Pierce Varous and Joshua Book.
Book, a graduate of the prestigious New York University Film School, developed a series of disturbing, cliffhanger TV commercials airing on channels like MTV and BET that leave viewers wondering, What the heck just happened here? The objective is to lead young people to a Web site, lookcloseronline.com. There teens find videos, called Webisodes, that peer into the lives of several fictional characters, some of whom first appear in the TV spots.
The tense, at times raw, clips, running five to seven minutes each, show how a teenager's love interest might lead to suicidal ideation, or how feelings of aloneness can result in self-mutilation, or cutting.
Linda Leonard, the crisis center's executive director, said the Webisodes can be shocking at times, noting that they are full of "HBO language." But, she said, the producers wanted to come as close as possible to the reality that teens live day in, day out.
"We want every teenager to be able to relate to this," Book said.
The fictional characters have profiles similar to those found on Facebook. Embedded within the profiles are clues to the psychological conditions the characters suffer from. The hope is that teens will recognize themselves in the characters and realize that they need help. The Web site subtly leads them to a subsite where contact information for the crisis center is found. The Carol Kestenbaum Foundation helped defray printing costs for fliers that go hand in hand with the TV and Web spots.
Ron Schiffman noted that his daughter's killer had sought help for his substance abuse in the weeks before he committed murder, stopping by a police station. The desk officer offered him information on a drug-treatment agency, but no one made sure that he received help. "They gave him a phone number, and that was it," Schiffman said.
The father added, "Every time I see another massacre, it's just heart-wrenching. If we can stop one killing, one suicide, that would be enough. Hopefully we can stop more than that and make these kids productive members of society."
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
