ROCK VIDEO WITH A MESSAGE

In his first try at making a music video, local composer, real estate developer and management consultant David Blanchard won a bronze prize at the International Film and Television Festival of New York.

The 5 1/2-minute videocassette probably won’t cause Prince or Madonna to sweat the competition, but it may be the start of a new educational use for music videos. The video, which has received letters of commendation from police and school officials, is being shown to 10th-graders in the San Diego city schools as part of a social concerns program. The Turner Broadcasting Co. will broadcast the video on its superstation, WTBS, during the holiday season as a public service announcement.

Blanchard, 32, who considers himself “a fairly serious composer,” felt that after 11 years in business as an office management consultant to more than 100 physicians, it was time to use his musical talent. With the aid of a friend who had been keyboardist for the Osmonds, Blanchard set up a record company that would specialize in “lyrically trusted contemporary music.” Originally, he wanted to write and record Top 40 quality music that is an alternative to rock with a heavy emphasis on violence.

“I don’t think you make changes by screaming and yelling,” Blanchard said of those who would rate records and picket to protest references to drugs and sex in rock lyrics. Instead, a year ago Blanchard made an album, sans references to drugs, sex or violence. That initial creative effort blossomed into a video script for “Reach Out,” a cut from the original album, which was never released. The video vividly portrays the consequences of driving and drinking, as a group of partygoers in a car run a stop sign and a pregnant woman is killed.

With appearances by actor Gordon Jump (“WKRP”); Norma Phillips, national chairwoman of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Blanchard as a rock composer and the husband of the woman killed, the cassette is being marketed along with a five-minute training tag as an educational tool for youth and for driver education.

Encouraged by “Reach Out’s” reception, Blanchard has plans for other music videos to deal with contemporary social issues. A cassette on rape, “Can’t You See Me,” and one on racism, “Somewhere in the Night,” are in the production phase, and he has plans for another on missing children.

TEEN IMAGE: New Image Teen Theatre, San Diego’s teen-age theater troupe which uses often hilarious, homemade generic skits to provide adolescents with the facts on sex, drugs, incest and decision making, has won two national awards for its 30-minute television special. Produced by KPBS-TV (Channel 15), “New Image Teen Theatre” took the children’s Local Programming Award for Excellence, given by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It also won an Alpha Award from the first Children’s Television Festival. Written by the members of New Image and produced by Sarah Luft, it was funded by the Junior League and Target stores.

Another KPBS-produced program, “Aguas Negras: Black Water Time Bomb,” was one of two winners in Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s local program awards in the public affairs documentary category. Produced and written by Matthew Eisen, it examines the international implications of the flow of raw sewage from the Tijuana River into San Diego.

LATINO INCIDENT: If you’ve seen the promos for KPBS’s docu-drama, “The Lemon Grove Incident,” and think those characters look a tad familiar, you’re right. The fellow in the 1930s vintage attire, who is seen spilling his guts, is Douglas Jacobs, artistic director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre.

In 1930, the residents of Lemon Grove decided that Latino students should have a school separate from Anglo youngsters. Even second-generation Latino students who spoke little or no Spanish were forced to attend. Latino families who balked at sending their children to the new Olive Street School were quickly deported to Mexico. But the Latinos won in an anti-discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of student Roberto Alvarez.

The one-hour KPBS program, which airs locally at 9 p.m. Dec. 10, dramatizes the events surrounding the incident. Local actors were cast for the show, shot earlier this year. Jacobs plays school board member Bill Kramer, and Lee Donnelly appears as his wife. Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund plays Judge Claude Chambers. William Anton, who’s wowing audiences in the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s sold-out production of “Rap Master Ronnie,” portrays a truant officer. Appearing as heavies are Bill Brinsfield, as a citizen, and Nat Modica, as the school board’s lawyer. Other recognizable faces who have all worked on local stages include Susanna Thompson, Katherine Faulconer, Gail West, Navarre Perry, Ann Richardson, Robert Hansen and John Mathers.

Among the child actors are Ricardo Alzaga and Marcos Ortiz who plays the young student, Roberto Alvarez. Alvarez himself appears, reminiscing about what it all was like. Frank Christopher directed. “The Lemon Grove Incident,” described by a spokeswoman as KPBS’s most ambitious undertaking to date, will repeat at 2 p.m. Dec. 12 and at 1 p.m. Dec. 14.

SYMPHONY SHIFTS: It seems you can’t get all of the guest artists all of the time. First, Japanese conductor Hiroshi Wakasugi canceled his date to conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in mid-January with the San Diego Symphony. Now the word is we won’t hear pianist Paul Schenly do Gershwin’s Piano Concerto next week. A wrist injury he suffered some time ago has not healed.

Not to worry. Pianist James Tocco will fill in for next week’s concerts under David Atherton. And Wakasugi’s loss (he canceled all his January North American appearances) is assistant conductor David Commanday’s gain. Commanday, who presides over the young people’s concerts, will get his first crack on the podium for a regular-season concert.

Meanwhile, ticket sales are definitely up. After the second week of the season, the orchestra announced it had sold more than $1.1 million in tickets. That’s $25,000 more than were sold all last season. Ticket orders for the last two weeks have been coming in at a rate of $30,000 a day, a spokeswoman said.

ARTBEATS: The Bowery Theatre has extended its hit production of “Talking With,” a series of women’s monologues, through Dec. 15. . . . Winners of the first California Young Playwright’s Project contest have been announced. Four scripts were selected from 54 submitted. They are by Hadley Worcester, 14; Kim Shaw and Francisco Garcia, both 18, and Thomas A. Mournian, who is 19 (but was a qualifying 18 at the contest’s deadline). The four short plays will be directed by the Old Globe’s David Hay and presented Jan. 15-19 at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre.