Instructional videosHomeland security films informational but costly

Over the last four years the mayor’s office of Public Safety and Homeland Security in Houston, Texas, has spent $540,000 dollars to produce three short videos teaching people how to react in public safety emergencies. The price tag has some people upset.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the latest video, called “Run, Hide and Fight,” has 800,000 hits on YouTube and has another 25,000 hits on the City of Houston’s Web site.  The video has also become popular with other governments as hundreds of cities, towns, and companies in the United States have inquired about using the video, as did municipalities and organizations in Germany, Japan, and Australia, according to Chief Dennis Storemski, who thought the video was a success.

“Frankly I was surprised. I had hoped it would catch on, locally and regionally, because these projects are for the whole Houston metropolitan area. I was just surprised how quickly it caught on, especially on YouTube” Storemski told the Chronicle. “So yeah, I’m blown and away and happy.”“

Even with the success of these videos, some people are not too happy with the cost of production.

Clete Snell, chairman of the University of Houston downtown department of criminal justice, thought the film’s price tag was too high.

“Wow, that’s a lot of money,” Snell told the Chronicle “Honestly if it were my budget I’d say no, I wouldn’t do it. The number of this kind of shootings are low, they are somewhat rare and a lot are copycats. In my mind, it’s a more important question to ask about the availability of guns in this country. In other countries, people don’t have access to guns like in the U.S.”

Those involved in producing the videos say the high cost is the result of the Department of Homeland Security’s demand that video imitated real life situations and used characters that could depict those situations.

Some people do not mind the cost. David Ruth, the director of national media relations for Rice University, says: “I was pleasantly surprised that they made it so graphic. You have to have something dramatic to get people’s attention, we’ve encouraged our public affairs staff to watch it as a good resource ”

The university police at Rice plans to use the video as a tool when fall classes begin this year, Ruth added.

Joan Neuhaus Schann, a fellow in Homeland Security and Terrorism at Rice University, did not have enough information to judge whether the cost of the videos were too high or not; but she did think it was paramount to get the public to plan and prepare for such events.

“After going through years and years of ‘Don’t worry, the government is there to protect you,’ when it came to (hurricanes) Katrina, Rita and Ike, as much as you can be prepared with a population of 4 million, you can’t meet everybody’s needs,” Neuhaus Schaan told the Chronicle. “So if you have a prepared public, rather than a public dependent on government, the entire citizenry is going to be better off.”

Neuhaus Schann also thought one of the city’s other videos, titled “Make the Call,” does a good job of getting out the message that citizens should contact authorities when luggage or packages are left unattended in public space.

“That kind of attitude has actually been what has thwarted attacks in the last two years in United States, it’s because somebody has made that call,” she said.

The “Make The Call” video, which features a man leaving a backpack in an open-air restaurant among other scenarios, was released in 2010 and cost $140,000 to make.

The “Run, Hide, Fight” video featured members of the Houston Police Department’s SWAT team as the characters, including the shooter in the film.  The video was released the week after the 20 July shooting inside a movie theatre in Colorado that killed twelve and wounded fifty-eight.

“We did it intentionally because we were working on how we were going to release the video to the public to get the most interest,” Storemski recalled. “And when that (Colorado massacre) happened, we said here it is.”

While the initial dollar amount of the video may be too much for people to handle, Storemski said the film has reached more than 800,000 viewers or about 25 cents a view and brought up a solid point about the end result of the video.

“So when you get down to it, it’s pennies a person,” Storemski told the Chronicle. “And before the dust settles, it’s going to be less than that. And if it saves a few lives, what is a life worth? It’s all geared to, at the end of the day, save lives and prevent injury.”