Beating Hearts and Brilliant Art: Hannah Johnson’s Pulsating PSA takes Best Overall at Porterville Film Festival

On Wednesday, December 6th, Hannah Johnson, ’25, surpassed all entrees and obtained Best Overall at the Porterville Film Festival. Her video was a CPR public service announcement [PSA] inspired by an experience she and her family faced.

By: Donya Hassanshahi

Enthralling an audience is one thing—igniting the room roaring with immense passion, fueling the fire to the grandest extent.

The alluring light of the orange hue is captivating, yet the mind wavers to the voices within the background, murmuring, about the minimalistic elements life offers. “Stop for a second,” they say, “and smell the roses while the sun’s out.” Passing time is inevitable.

The clock never stops, and life prevails.

Busy bees zoom through, looking to pollinate numerous flowers and accumulate honey for their hives. Despite fulfilling their job, the seconds spent with the plant are bare, and exposure to the pigmented coloration diminishes.

The rigor invested in daily endeavors is known, and Hannah Johnson, ’25, invested her time into ensuring the authenticity of her pieces remains true to herself and others.

Cinematography is simply another language to Johnson. In the past, she has dabbled with editing and crafting personal videos to acquaint herself with the artistic forum, but it wasn’t until she entered Redwood that she indulged in the resources offered.

For the past three years, Johnson has been an active member of the Redwood video program. She began her video endeavors in the intermediate class her freshman year and progressed as an advanced student for the past two years. With the projects she takes on, she says, “Half of the projects I do are assigned by the teacher, but a lot of them I work on myself. I’m really determined to get as many awards as possible to build my portfolio before college.”

Throughout her video career thus far, Johnson has submitted and won awards at various film festivals. She has won three Slick Rock awards, won first for the Georgia festival, and—from the thousands of videos submitted globally—placed top twenty-five and top ten for the biggest film festival in the world: the All-American Film Festival. Looking into the future, Johnson says, “I’m really hoping that during my senior year, I can make a good enough project that could possibly win, which would be a huge accomplishment for me, that would be great for college, and I know that Henshaw [her video instructor] would just be so proud of me because no one has ever won an All American from Redwood before.”

Now, she’s added the Porterville Film Festival to her portfolio.

In comparison to other film festivals that video students have participated in in the past, Johnson says the Porterville Film Festival is a small, but growing, community due to it being in its third year. Last year, she was awarded second place in the PSA category. This year, there were fifty more videos submitted, with about one hundred fifty videos submitted to the competition in total. The award that Johnson left with Wednesday night, Best Overall, was a new addition to the categories.

Determining how to approach the video, and how to fathom the craft required to execute its delivery required intricate work. To decide on what she would submit to the festival, Johnson said, “This year, I wanted to make a video that was a little more special. With everything that happened with my dad, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to educate people on how important it is to be CPR trained.”

Undergoing the filming and editing aspects independently, she and her dad brainstormed alongside one another to truly incorporate all factors of the story. Johnson says, “My dad was still in the hospital when he came up with an idea for a CPR PSA and when he told me about it when I was visiting him one time, I thought it was a fantastic idea.”

Keeping in mind the requirements for the PSA category, which was delivering a video that was one minute and thirty seconds (nothing longer), she says she “really had to work hard to get [her] message out there quick enough and effectively in a short amount of time.”

Having prior experience in constructing and directing PSA content, she knew what was needed to fulfill the expectations. Though, Johnson did not only want to visually fulfill—she wanted to exceed. “The hard part was trying to recreate my dad’s story. It was emotional, but it was also educational. I really wanted people to know that CPR really does save lives, and I’m an example that CPR can save people because it saved my dad.”

After instilling nearly ten hours into the project, she showed her video teacher the first draft. Initially, she says, “When I came to my video teacher with the idea, he originally thought it would not be possible to pull off. He thought that it would be too complex, and I wouldn’t have enough time to finish, but I took a camera, interviewed my dad, got some B-roll, and put it all together, and when I finished, he thought it had turned out to be one of the best videos produced at Redwood.”

Considering the numerous drafts Johnson has worked with to enhance the quality of her video and message, she says, “For the Porterville film festival, I had to submit one of the versions really early on, so even though it won best overall, the CPR video has come so much farther than when I first submitted it, so for the Slick Rock Film Festival in May, I’m going to be submitting a much better version, and I’m really hoping to win best overall.”

Her revised version incorporates an animated piece by Elijah Ochs, who also attended the Porterville Film Festival. Alongside Ochs, Tanner Hoffman, Corey Greenmail, Jovie Blair, and April Redden received third place for their PSA, Darkness of the mind.

Once she completed all of her revisions and achieved the depth of portrayal she aspired for, Johnson had to show the most important audience: her family. “The first time my family saw the video, they were super emotional. Everyone was crying because they just thought it was super important. Immediately, my dad started sending it out to family members and everyone was just showing their love for it and obviously our community thinks it’s important too because I won Best Overall. When they announced my name, my dad and I just hugged each other, and I could see that he was on the verge of tears because he was so happy to see that my work had been appreciated and that the message of CPR could potentially save lives because I’ve won this award and people have seen the video,” she says.

Throughout her experiences in teamwork settings and leadership responsibilities, she has learned how to navigate finding motivation within herself, allowing her passion to drive her.

“Taking this big project on by myself was definitely a challenge, but it proved that I do have the tenacity to get work done if I have the right motivation…If you’re passionte about something, then go out and get it. I never thought I would ever be able to win all of the awards I have now, but I stepped outside of my comfort zone, and it’s rewarded nothing but success.”

Hannah Johnson, ’25

Mr. Matthew Johnson is Hannah’s father. The two worked alongside one another to make this idea a reality.

Mr. Johnson says, “Making the video originally was my idea because I’m an educator, I’m a teacher, and my whole life is about educating and helping others, and I saw this as an opportunity to turn my experience into a teaching, a learning opportunity for others.”

He says the experience of collaborating with his daughter created such a unique product. “I’m so pleased, and when she won at the Porterville film festival, it was such a joy and just filled me with gratitude, because when I was in the hospital, I had a lot of emotions that I felt. One of the nurses said, ‘Hey, your story can inspire others, your story can help others,’ and that’s what gave me the idea—the nurse gave me the idea—to make this video, to encourage people to get CPR trained.”

Given the incorporation of both her mother and father, Mr. Johnson says how proud their family is of the hard work Hannah has instilled into this project, and anything she undertakes. “At the time that I suggested that she make this video, she was working on several other videos for school, let alone essays and projects and studying for tests, but she took the idea and within maybe a day or so and she had her first cut. When I saw it, I said, ‘Hannah, you’re going to win every competition out there with this’. It was just an opportunity to turn what was almost a tragedy into hopefully a triumph because if even one person can be saved if even one life can be saved by this message, then what I went through was not in vain.”

“She has always loved playing with cameras and making videos ever since she was probably six years old, so watching her turn that hobby into a course of study, and possibly someday into a profession is very satisfying, very fulfilling, very encouraging because you want to see your daughter—you want to see your child—-at this age start to narrow it down in terms of what you want to do as a profession, and it’s encouraging to see that Hannah has these ideas. And she’s really good at it.”

Mr. Matthew Johnson discussing his outlook on his daughter’s work ethic after working together

Mr. Henshaw, Head of the Video Department and Video teacher at Redwood High School, says that aspires all students to acquire that drive Hannah has shown. “What’s great about Hannah is that she takes something and has made it better and better and better. And that’s what I tell students: to do great, to win awards like this, you have to keep working on it. It’s like clay: you mold it and mold it and you make it better and you take things away and you add things until eventually you make it amazing,” he says.

In the past, Redwood Video has not attempted to execute a PSA similar to Hannah’s CPR PSA. Despite his hesitance for Hannah to pursue this at first, Henshaw says, “When something’s new, people are unsure. But when she captured the interview of her father, I said, ‘Wow. This is a winner.’ “

“Hannah is really a hard working, stubborn, but hard working student when it comes to film making. She has a vision, and sometimes my vision is totally different from hers, and that’s ok because she’s made her own look, her own style. Hannah is doing what I want all students to do, and really it’s her work ethic that’s paying off. The art, the talent, starts to grow as she works hard. Some students may start out better than her, but her effort and work ethic get her to pass everybody. And where she may lack in certain areas, she overcomes them by that work ethic.”

Mr. Henshaw regarding Hannah as a student and artist

Mrs. Barbara Johnson is Hannah’s mother. Having a role in the film alongside her husband, Matthew, she says, “I wasn’t surprised that Hannah embraced this video topic. CPR training was a very relevant and personal topic for her. It turned out better than I could have imagined.”

Taking on new projects and expressing unique ideas takes dedication and ample passion. Seeing it first-hand, Mrs. Johnson says, “When Hannah is passionate about a topic, she gets in a zone and won’t stop editing until it is exactly how she wants it, even if it means staying up past midnight to get it just right. She does her best to tell the story, but likes to incorporate new effects with sound, lighting, and graphics to enhance the overall product.”

Hannah internalizes her emotions, so I think doing this video, in a way, was therapy for her. It helped her to process all that was going on. She has been making videos for over a decade, but this video is one I am most proud of because of the quality of the work, the emotions it evokes, and it also serves as a video diary of what our family went through.”

Mrs. Barbara Johnson on her daughter’s growth, through her talents and mental maturation

To view Hannah’s award-winning CPR PSA, click below to educate yourself on the direness of CPR.

Be a Life Saver

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