On an idyllic spring day at Clark Atlanta University, Brittani Watkins and Justin Milburn appeared to be just another college couple in love. They held hands and committed to take their relationship to a new level.

Then they made their point: Both said they had been tested for HIV/AIDS.

As they talked, Eddie Whelan, Ethan Schiff and Ebony Smith recorded their voices and images on a cellphone and transmitted them to a Midtown hotel. Hours later, at the hotel, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Verizon and several local AIDS-related organizations sipped soft drinks and watched them.

The video was one in more than a dozen shot by five teams of college students in Atlanta this week in a project sponsored by Verizon Wireless, the CDC and the University of Georgia's New Media Institute.

In a few weeks, some of the videos may show up on an electronic device near you as part of a campaign to encourage young people to be tested for HIV.

Watkins and Whelan are University of Georgia students, Schiff is at Emory University and Smith is at Clark Atlanta. They recruited Milburn, a Clark Atlanta student, to play the role of Watkins' boyfriend.

Georgia's New Media Institute Director Scott Shamp describes the collaboration as a win-win-win situation. Students get the opportunity to operate new technology in work for an actual client —- the CDC. Verizon Wireless gets exposure for its products and services. And the CDC gains an inroad into a young demographic group that often ignores traditional media.

This week's day of shooting in the sun was the result of a conversation over drinks at a journalism conference three years ago. Shamp and two colleagues bemoaned the time and energy spent on the trivial use of cellphones. Surely, they concluded, students' cellphone networks could be harnessed for important social messages.

Verizon donated use of its highest-tech equipment and $12,000. The CDC provided $30,000 and expertise. UGA, Georgia Tech, Clark Atlanta, Emory, Georgia State and the University of South Carolina sent students. Shamp pulled in a few fellow professors.

The goal is to have several videos ready for release by June 27, National HIV Testing Day.

Because a quarter of people infected with HIV don't know it, they are likely to pass it on, said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC's national center for HIV/AIDS. Having more people tested could help check the spread.

"We are especially concerned about HIV and younger people," Fenton said. "We have to make sure our messages are innovative, relevant and culturally competent. There's no better way than to involve young people."

Pamela Ezell, a filmmaker and faculty member at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., said the project was "one of the greatest educational-production-real-world experiences I've ever had." As a producer, Ezell was in a hotel conference room evaluating transmissions coming in from the team on the Clark Atlanta campus.

"Lose the tree," she advised at one point as distracting foliage showed up. Then, "that's perfect" and "you guys make a great couple."

The public service announcements had an impact even before they were filmed. "The first people who got educated were the students and us," Ezell said.

Justin Milburn, the Clark student actor, got the message. He came to the screening and left convinced, he said, that people should be tested and encourage their friends to be tested.

Brittani Watkins, his video girlfriend, had another thought.

Are there Academy Awards, she wanted to know, for public service announcements?