“The New Hood” Open Adoption MTV PSA

16 mm

Trt – :30 sec

Produced and Directed by Rosemary Rawcliffe

Written by Joey Cummings

Music by Anne Bryant

Director of Photography, Rachel Libert

The concept is very simple and relevant. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many young women are faced with parenthood. This is a scary moment which, until Open Adoption, offered them little choice. You had abortion, or you had a kind of adoption where birth mother and child were forever cut off from each other. Open Adoption offers a new kind of choice. We called it by a name that makes it intriguing and cool. It’s the “NEW HOOD” … a place where kids can go when they are caught between childhood, adulthood, and parenthood. The “NEW HOOD” is the choice young women have been waiting for, a choice which is about love, about life, about time.

Bruce Rappaport, Executive Director, Independent Adoption Center, CA

“We faced a major challenge: how could we reach young people, on a national basis, with a critical message about adoption. The spot had to be ‘hip’ for two reasons: (1) so the kids would listen (2) so the stations, with the youth format and audience we wanted, would play the video. The message had to be hip but not too hip: young people dislike nothing more than ‘adults’ trying too hard to be cool. The production had to be MTV style yet polished and professional so that young people could relate to it, and so stations would be willing to play it. We had 15 or 30 seconds to convey emotional and complicated ideas. And, to top it all off, we had a limited budget. Rosemary and her crew pulled off a near miracle in meeting this challenge. The PSA video is hip, catchy, MTV style, yet polished, creative, and brilliantly conveyed our message.”

Testimonials

Bruce Rappaport
– Independent Adoption Center