College Promotional Video

Ufilms had this idea to create a promotional video for the college following the lack of media that targeted the audience appropriately, it was decided Kane and myself would project manage this shoot as Kane is a great front person for business so would be involved in meetings as well as helping film it and I would take on the production office role 

We first approached the college  on January 24th with the idea of creating a promotional video for the college that would appeal to the target audience. We embraced that we are the age of target audience meaning we understand what appeals to them and what the video should include as well as knowing our ability is of near-professional standard. 

On the 8th March we then met James, the schools liaison, who the video will be used by an for. It will be shown when they go into schools to attract secondary school students to choose our college. We discussed the ideas we had, the inclusion of students opinions, a mini tour around the college, W wanted to highlight the student life and students at the college and what they have to say. James gave us creative control on the video as he wanted to see what we came up with and what we thought prospective students would want to see. 

Following the meeting we wrote a shot list and started filming 9th March, we filmed two of the interviews with other members of our class as we believed they represented the college well and what they had to say was persuasive but truthful, however they were second year students meaning they had to think back to when they first joined the college to answer the questions. We completed a tracking shot around both buildings of the college, after filming it  a few times taking different routes we went back to the classroom to watch the footage back and see if we would be able to use it and edit it, we then went back out and filmed a couple more times learning from what was wrong with the first batch of footage, this was changing the framing so it was higher and slowing down at times. We started editing the footage by speeding up parts of the tour, we also believed we needed another interview so we asked first year acting student Flo to answer the questions, this was great as she gave completely truthful answers about first joining the college and her impressions. We then edited in the interviews and chose a piece of royalty free music, we did this so that the video can be uploaded onto social media without any copyright issues/complaints.  

We showed the first draft of the video April 4th where they gave us feedback, they were very impressed by the video and idea giving minor improvements: add a title, create a subtitled version for hard of hearing and so that the video can be played without sound, include stats and Ofsted rating, add social media tags and logo at the end and include the pupils' name and school.

We made the majority of the improvements, we did not include the pupils' name and school as it didn't look right with the subtitles, we also didn't include any stats only the Ofsted rating but add the social media tags and the logos.

There was the 2 week Easter break between which meant we had the final draft ready for them May 2nd, where they were very pleased and happy with video, only they noticed and so did I mistakes on the subtitles. I helped Kane edit the first draft but after that was working on other projects leaving him to edit whilst I continued any production paperwork and was always there to help if he needed me. 

We made the improvements quickly, I went through the subtitles looking for the mistakes and exported the video for the final time. I emailed James however he was on leave until this week (w/c 22nd May) therefore we could not give him the final video until Tuesday 23rd May, Kane and I had to leave before James came therefore Taylor gave James the video. 

In our last meeting with James and his team we spoke about doing another video, we had previously mentioned it but wanted to wait until the first one was complete. The next video will be about college facilities but myself and Kane will ask the first year students to create the video whilst we over see it, mainly due to how busy we are but also because we are leaving and the first should get the chance at possible business. It also means if the video is completed by the deadline which is June 29th, this is our last day meaning we would not receive payment therefore if the first year students create the video they will get the payment for their second year.  

In my opinion I believe the project was managed and executed very successfully and professionally, we tried to keep the client updated frequently so that they were aware that progress was still being made on the video and acted on their feedback so that the best video for them was created. By working in a pair this allowed each other to know exactly what the progress was and could bounce ideas off each other allowing us to produce the best video. It also meant that no other crew was needed for the video and we could share roles in all aspects of production so that we were both gaining experience. 

I believe the only failure was that I should have checked the video before showing the client what we thought was the final draft, as I would have identified the mistakes in the subtitles; I felt very embarrassed about showing them a video with such obvious mistakes but it was easily corrected by  myself and Kane.