BACKGROUND
In 2021, the Highline School District needed to pivot it’s formerly in person event, Stormfest – into a COVID-safe, video series. The series featured local stormwater professionals, sharing the science behind the subject matter and how they found careers in it. As the lead designer and videographer, I needed to spend ample time upfront, mapping out the production of our three part videos series and most importantly how we would film our interviews and BRoll in these socially distant times.
ACTIONS
Because we were filming during COVID, I didn’t know if in person filming would be possible, which meant we needed to educate our video subjects about video production so they could film their own footage. I developed a video resource guide to train our video subjects on the process, that outlined each step of production, offered video production concepts, along with guiding questions as they developed their scripts. As it turned out, I was able to film the contributors’ interviews and much of the BRoll, which made editing so much more streamlines. As lead designer, I defined a look and feel for my two junior designers who build out the bulk of the animations and visuals based on the direction I’d set. This ensured a cohesive look across all three videos we produced
RESULTS
I feel really proud of this work because of how it responded to the ever changing constraints of the pandemic and also that it allowed our three professionals to own their stories. The real goal of this series wasn’t to create the highest-production value products, but to positively impact our middle school audience, getting them excited about a topic and career paths they may have not been familiar with. I feel proud of the steps we took to make these videos accessible to our audience, both in who we featured as well as offering the series in Spanish. 3,500 students saw these videos!