Eat Smart NY: Eat Better for Less wins 2014 Bronze Telly Award
Many low-income New Yorkers struggle to provide fresh healthy food and make smart nutrition choices for their families. That’s why Governor Andrew Cuomo expanded the FreshConnect program, improving access to fresh locally-produced food and nutrition education for low-income or underserved communities. This program also offers a rebate incentive that encourages New Yorkers receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (“SNAP”—formerly known as “Food Stamps”) to use those benefits at farmers’ markets, providing $2 rebate checks for every $5 in SNAP benefits spent at participating markets.
The NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) administers New York’s SNAP program and asked PDP’s Department of Media Production to produce a high-end public information video product for use in statewide public campaigns, to inform people about this great program.
The video Eat Smart NY: Eat Better for Less follows a mother and daughter through a farmer’s market where they use SNAP benefits to purchase the fresh vegetables for a recipe they had learned in an Eat Smart NY Education class, before heading back home to prepare a healthy meal for the family. All scenes were filmed in English and Spanish by a cast and crew of twenty during the fall of 2013 at four different locations around the Capital Region. Media Production staff managed all aspects of this large scale production including agency coordination, script approval, casting and contracting with bilingual talent, location scouting, location management and coordination with city and county governments, primary production of both English and Spanish versions, as well as all editing and post-production work.
We are pleased to announce that Eat Smart NY: Eat Better for Less has been awarded a bronze Telly in the Health and Wellness category of the 2014 Telly Awards! This competition began in 1978 and includes categories for film and video productions, web commercials, outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs with over 13,000 entries every year. The ultimate success of this challenging project required the efforts of each PDP Department of Media Production staff member and we are all extremely proud of this recognition.
OTDA’s Public Information Office released the videos on April 14th, 2014 via the agency’s YouTube channel and you can view this award-winning effort.