“Unstained” is a short form mini-series designed to inform at-risk New Mexico youth about sexual education, identifying positive and negative relationships in their lives, and ultimately encourage positive decision-making skills that would assist youth in building toward future goals. At the time of the mini-series creation, New Mexico led the country in incarcerated females between the ages of twelve and fifteen years old. The Office of Population Affairs conducted research that determined that New Mexico youth were becoming incarcerated and unintentionally pregnant through a basic lack of knowledge. The mini-series set out to help youth navigate identifying healthy and negative relationships, completing high school or getting a GED, being aware of the risks of STI’s and unplanned pregnancy.
Raven Crow Entertainment developed the six, 10–12 minute episode series to be a highly cinematic and entertaining narrative. The goal was to keep the viewers’ attention with a twisting and intriguing narrative, while peppering in the necessary lessons and setups for discussions about how the show matches a viewer’s own life experience. The series is ultimately part of a larger curriculum where youth discuss aspects of the story line, characters decisions and the outcomes.
This series received funding from The Policy & Research Group (PRG) through the Office of Population Affairs. PRG then contracted Rising Impact Global (formally PCI Media), who then contracted Raven Crow Entertainment to produce the series, “Unstained” in its entirety.
This project is made possible by grant number 1 TP2H000070-01-11 from the HHS Office of Population Affairs.
"Unstained" was developed from research by the Office of Population Affairs that identified troubling trends amongst the youth of New Mexico. To address these issues workshops were conducted, led by Rising Impact Global, The Policy & Research Group (PRG) and including Raven Crow Entertainment, in juvenile detention with at-risk youth who were on probation. The workshops led the youth in creating characters and storylines that were realistic to them and their own life experiences to shape what would become “Unstained”.
Throughout the process a group of at-risk youth were always involved with reviewing and providing feedback on the series. In the beginning youth helped create the concept and as the process continued, they would read rough drafts of the scripts, then provide their insight on character dialogue, interactions, and even the names of characters. Our writer used these characters concepts and scene outlines to develop a series that would engage our target audience.
For development our writer took the concepts created the outline of the episodes, balancing drama with lessons and ultimately trying to drive the story in the direction the youth suggested. From character names to moments of tension or a setting for a scene, Raven Crow Entertainment made every effort to keep the story true to what the youth had envisioned.
During postproduction, the at-risk youth would watch the episodes and gave feedback on music, pacing, as well as understandability of the story. There were also experts that weighed in during the process, focusing on the technical conversations surround sexual education. As an example, scenes with a nurse and a youth character might have sensitive conversations that needed careful wording for clarity (as seen in episode 3 at 3:20 and episode 4 at 1:27 and 5:30). Their dialogue and delivery were essential to avoid sounding cheesy and to also deliver accurate info relevant to the mission of “Unstained”.
Raven Crow Entertainment’s mission was to create highly engaging storylines that would make the youth want to continue watching the series. Our goal was always balancing drama and education, so that the series might be enjoyable enough to learn from. We used state of the art equipment and industry crew (although it was a skeleton crew as we say!) along with industry standard post production programs in order to bring Hollywood level cinematic quality to the youth of New Mexico.
Unstained has been shown and tested with incarnated teens for the past three years, collecting a wealth of information about how the series performs. Research has shown that 85% of youth viewers have changed their lives and the program boasts a 93% retention rate for all six episodes (workshopped separately). 87% considered the series to be high quality and 72% said they would recommend the series to friends.
Due to its success, “Unstained” has receiving two separate rounds of funding and a third funding round for a spin off series not based on “Unstained”. The success of “Unstained” is measurable in how the target audience reacts to it. Our demographic describes the series as “high quality” and “entertaining”. The larger success is in how the series helps change lives. With a ninety percent retention rate, it is clear our audience enjoys the programing. Research shows that more than eighty percent of the youth show improved positive decision-making skills, and many follow through with graduating high school and making conscious choices for their futures.
