Know Vape: Myths vs. Facts
A statewide anti-vaping campaign for Idaho Public Television that tells the truth about Big Tobacco. DJ directed six spots pitting the myths teens believe against the actual facts. The campaign won a 2024 Northwest Regional Emmy.
Community Outreach, Small Market · from the NATAS Northwest chapter
The truth, not a lecture.
Idaho's youth vaping crisis was built by Big Tobacco: addictive, easy to hide, fruity-flavored devices aimed straight at kids. And a set of myths the industry needs teenagers to believe. Lectures don't move teenagers.
So Know Vape did the opposite. The series exposed the chemicals, named the way the industry preys on young people, and separated myth from fact, in a voice teens would actually watch. "Be Smart. Don't Start." Real information, on their level, not adults talking down.
Made to land with teens.
Play · right here ✳ Myth vs Fact: Vapor · Idaho Public Television 
✳ Know Vape in the classroom · Idaho Public Television Behind the camera.
I was brought onto Know Vape for the thing I do on every campaign: directing teams and making work that's culturally native to young people. In this case, teenagers with a two-second scroll reflex. April Frame wrote and shot the spots. I directed all six. Each one had to make a public-health point land in seconds, in a voice a teenager would not scroll past.
DJ shot the campaign, too.
Directing the spots was only half of it. I also shot the campaign's stills, the frames that ran on the web, across social, and on billboards around Idaho. The brief moved away from fear and lectures toward something truer: real slices of teenage life in Idaho. Practices and portraits, friends and the quiet ordinary moments worth protecting. I photographed them like they mattered, because they do.
DJ's frames, the campaign system.
Focus on the facts: the teen vaping numbers were staggering, and showing them without a lecture was paramount to the campaign. The system dropped those facts into imagery teens already knew, into their worlds, and delivered the truth without the finger wagging. Brand design and motion graphics by Isabel Sarhad, built on the images DJ shot.
Part of an Emmy-winning campaign.
Know Vape won the 2024 Northwest Regional Emmy for Community Outreach (Small Market), from the NATAS Northwest chapter. The Myth vs Fact spots DJ directed were part of that campaign, public-media storytelling that met teens where they are and earned its reach.
