A windshield smashed by a head. Flashing red lights A seatbelt that was not used.
It's a typical scene on highways, but this one will appear this spring on a nationally televised 30-second public service announcement directed by SF State graduate Joseph Vogt.
He said he believes his latest work, "Impact -- The Haunting Seatbelt," will grab people's attention the same as his first production about a smoking fetus did earlier this year.
Vogt, 28, earned a reputation for using shocking images with the award-winning "Smoking-fetus," which was aired nationally on ABC but barred by CBS and NBC for being too graphic.
The controversial anti-smoking announcement featured a fetus smoking a cigarette while a voice warned pregnant mothers not to smoke.
It recently won the International Broadcasting Award of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society.
(Impact) is just as graphic as the fetus commercial," said Vogt. "It lets the viewer discover the scene and then hits them with the message.
Vogt described the one-scene announcement as an attempt "to shock people with visuals and sound effects, but in a friendly way. "I want to blow people away by being simple," he said.
Vogt said the announcement is important because there is a seatbelt law pending in several states, including California.
The Assembly this week approved a bill requiring car occupants to buckle their seatbelts and auto makers to put airbags in cars.
The bill is now in the Senate.
But Jan Goodson, executive director at the American Trauma Society, which is sponsoring Vogt's $40,000 announcement, said, "It is not enough to pass a law and expect people to buckle.
"'You need to have an educational component," she said.
Public Service announcements are aired for free and often address health and safety issues.
Goodson praised the commercial for connecting seatbelts with saving lives without using "blood and guts."
"The film was inspired by Naomi Revlyn, a copywriter who wrote "The head that could have made the decision to fasten the seatbelt no longer can," which will be taped in an eerie voice over the commercial."
Vogt is currently a producer for Eveslage Film and Video, which filmed the commercial.
A 1980 art and film graduate from SF State, he also has his own production company (Joseph Vogt Productions) for which he has produced several short films, including Rick Springfield's "Bop 'til You Drop" music video.
He was not always sure about becoming a filmmaker, he said.
When he moved from St. Louis to San Francisco in 1977 he took pre-medicine and business courses at SF State.
But he enrolled in the art department and met Bryan Roger's, an art teacher who "took me under his wings," said Vogt.
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