Sexy Comic Water Conservation Film Wins Contest

Wasting water is such a turn-off - that's the message of this amusing Public Service Announcement contest winner.

Long Beach is brimming with artists, and one of them is among the winners of the 2012 Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition, presented by Rain Bird.

Carla Dauden’s two minute and 42 second film, “The Wash,” is a PSA to remind viewers of the importance of water conservation. But the film is no normal and informative PSA; it is more than that. This film has a larger sense of comedy worked into its storyline.

The premise is of a young woman washing her car and spraying herself with the water in an effort to seduce her neighbor. The neighbor walks over as she looks at him expectantly, but instead of talking to her, as the audience is led to expect, he turns off the water and shakes his head before the words “You become more attractive when you care” and “Use water wisely” flash across the screen.

Dauden said that it was the element of surprise in her film that she liked the most because she was able to grab her audience’s attention and hold it until the end. When asked about her inspiration for the film, she said that she was listening to a song on the radio in her car while she was planning out the storyline and the comedic parts just came to her. 

“To me, the whole thing is a call to change in behavior,” Dauden said.

She said that the ideas in the film were a play on a privileged society where the girl washing her car represents exactly that.

“We need to change, and wasting is not cool,” Dauden said. “It’s just a change in terms of attitudes and behavior.”

Her film won in the Audience’s Choice category, which was showcased and awarded this fall, when Dauden won her $5,000 prize, according to a recent press release. But that’s not the only surprise she had in store.

Winners receive a free trip to Beverly Hills, but since Dauden is already local to the area, Rain Bird decided to fly her mom in from Brazil. Dauden grew up in Brazil and moved to California after graduating high school so that she could study film and cinema, according to her website.

While Dauden has recently moved to Los Angeles, she said that many of her films, including “The Wash,” were filmed in Long Beach. She said that she will be doing most of her filming in LA now, but since Long Beach is so supportive and such a great community, she would like to come back to Long Beach to film as well.