Joyride?, created by a team of seven media students at Longley Park Sixth Form College, will be premiered on Tuesday in front of an invited audience including Lord Mayor Coun Jane Bird.

The 10-minute film took seven months to film, mostly on location, on a budget of just under £1,000 - a tiny fraction of what a professional crew would have charged.

The project, commissioned by South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield Futures, grew out of a play which has toured South Yorkshire schools during the last few years.

PC Alan Hancock, a college governor who is also part of the local Safer Neighbour-hoods Scheme, said it was realised a film would reach a much wider audience than the play.

“The project has taken three years to come together.

“Funding came from the police authority and it’s proved to be money well spent - a professional company would have insisted on a budget of at least £1,000 a minute.”

The play was updated and adapted for the film, which tells the story of a joyriding escapade which goes tragically wrong - and the subsequent consequences.

The finished DVD will be sent out to Sheffield secondaries, all the nation’s police forces, as well as youth workers, probation services and crime prevention teams.

Apart from the film itself, the DVD also contains a frank interview with a 16-year-old who was sent to a juvenile offenders’ unit for six months for a string of joyriding offences.

Student Will Baker, 17, said the outdoor night shoots, some lasting up to five hours, had been the most difficult part of the filming process.

“We’ve spent dozens and dozens of hours on the film - we’d made short films on the course before, but not with this sort of budget,” he said.

“Planning and preparing for the shooting was the hardest part - the fun part was going out to do the filming,” said 19-year-old Jason Foley.

South Yorkshire police helicopter and vehicles from the ambulance service are featured in the film and scenes were shot in various locations, including a disused wing of the Northern General Hospital and the mortuary of a funeral parlour.

Student Natalie Beard, who plays the part of a dead teenager, was even sealed away in a genuine mortuary fridge.

The film will help the students achieve their diploma qualification, and will be useful on their CVs as they look for work in the TV and film industries.

Police are so impressed with the finished product they are considering further commissions for Longley Park students, with domestic violence and hoax 999 calls possible future subjects.