Last month, a Skyline High School senior took home the top prize in an Issaquah Drug Free Community Coalition competition to create an anti-drug public service announcement. After entering into a UW video contest for climate change, he’s setting his sights on film school, a job in videography and a career in filmmaking.

Trevor Thacker-Beach took home $1,000 on April 1 for the best overall entry in the Coalition’s Influence The Choice contest.

He was joined by nine other Issaquah School District students who placed in three categories — alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs — netting prizes between $75 and $150. In all, 260 students submitted 100 videos to the project.

“Life Is Beautiful,” Thacker-Beach’s entry, depicts images of nature, sport and human connection as representative of life’s alternatives to drug abuse. The montage is interrupted midway when a character stops his narration to ask him if he wants to get high. He refuses, asserting that 93 percent of high school students do not abuse illegal drugs (The percentage of high school students who abuse and do not abuse illegal drugs varies from study to study, as many rely on self-reporting, but the video’s percentage mirrors a 28-year finding by the University of Michigan Ann Arbor’s Institute for Social Research, which monitored the percentage of 12th graders who disapprove of regular use of illicit drugs).

This was the third year the Issaquah Drug Free Community Coalition held its Influence The Choice contest. Thacker-Beach watched entries from the prior two years to figure out which ideas were most effective.

“I thought about what judges would want to see on screen and … what would most positively impact somebody who is hopeless on drugs or alcohol to get out of their slump,” he said.

He wrote the script, eventually making the ending longer and more detailed on his girlfriend’s advice.

“Life Is Beautiful” was shot and edited over the course of three days on Thacker-Beach’s own camera, using his family, himself and his girlfriend as actors. Most prominently featured is his sister Autumn, playing the drug pusher in a scene that proved particularly technically difficult to shoot.

“I wanted to film it when it was dark to create a particular mood but that creates problems with lighting,” Thacker-Beach said. “Since my camera is horrible in low light, I had to get creative and bring in lamps, extra house bulbs, etc. to make that scene work. I still wasn’t in love with the look I got but it’s something I learned from and will know what to do better for next time.”

Thacker-Beach has already reinvested his prize money into a camera crane, shoulder mount and other accessories to accomplish more varied shots in future projects.

After graduating in June, he plans to find a full-time job as a videographer while working toward a bachelors in filmmaking and production from the Seattle Film Institute.

“My ending goal is to direct a feature length film,” he said.

The Rotary Clubs of Issaquah and Sammamish, as well as the Sammamish Kiwanis Club, donated the prize money for the Influence The Choice contest.