Designed for the Office of Graduate and Continuing Studies at PSU

This video was created for the Master of Engineering Technology program at Pittsburg State University. I filmed, edited, and produced it while working as a Graduate Assistant for the Office of Graduate and Continuing Studies. Prior to this project, I had no professional video experience. I learned nearly everything involved on the job. This was a fun project and and a great experience.

The Process

In the spring, the office hired a student employee to create a promotional video for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. This was the start of a long-term goal to create short promotional videos for every graduate program at the university. The student employee produced the video and graduated shortly there after before he could move on to the next video project.

Wishing to continue the momentum of the project, my boss started the search for a new student employee to produce more videos. After a couple months, she still could not find anyone for the job. We greatly desired to continue the working towards this long-term goal, so in mid-October, I walked into her office and volunteered to attempt the video project.

I was nearing the end of a couple major projects at work, and figured, why not? For a long time, I’ve wanted to learn more about video filming and editing, and this provided an excellent opportunity. Plus, I had the first, MBA video to use as a template to follow. I reviewed that video, made a rough outline, and got some advise from its creator before setting out to make the best possible MET promotional video I could make.

I started the project by making a storyboard using sticky-notes (I love sticky-notes) and the outline from the MBA video. This storyboard included campus, classroom, and lab footage. It also had an overview of the program and multiple interviews from faculty and students. I made the storyboard deliberately long. This gave me room to edit out sequences in the very likely case that I wouldn’t be able to record all the footage and interviews. I transferred the sticky-note version to a more condensed paper version and handed it to my boss for review. After discussing it with her, we set up a meeting the program coordinator, who gave us suggestions, recommended some classes to film, and helped us find a student to interview.

I setup a filming schedule, and spend the next few weeks filming. During this time I also conducted and filmed my first interview, which turned out great (although upon reflection, I could have improved upon the framing). I also met with the Office of University Marketing and Communication to collect appropriate archive footage.

With about two weeks left on the project, I had completed filming and received the voice-over for the overview of the program from another GA who wrote and recorded the script. I was ready to put all the pieces together. I integrated archive footage with my own to fit with the voice-over and interviews. I added titles and edited the footage to adjust for stabilization, color, and lighting. Then I placed the whole thing on a similar audio bed as the MBA video and adjusted audio levels appropriately. I worked hard to meet the deadline determined by my graduation and completed the project with time to spare. In the end, I think the video turned out great.