High School Acceptance Video

Well - the income stream from the repeated shoots should be great, but I can't imagine Cambridge or Oxford here in the UK doing this. A great idea but I guess we're a little more orthodox in the UK. A letter in the post would work for us. That said - the thing is well made and works pretty well - just the truly cringeworthy content from a British viewpoint where we still think of uni or college as a bit dull and old fashioned - the Yee haaa wow approach would be totally wrong for us - but the neatness of this for the US world looks pretty good and is very competently made. I'm imagining some of the UK educators trying to do a video like this and smiling at how awful, they'd be!
 
I do a lot of work for Jewish private high schools. There is a lot of competition right now...they take producing videos very seriously. That being said, my clients are always looking for something out of the box. I agree, this wouldn't work for a larger university or a school that prides itself on a classical or IV league education (not that the curriculum at this school is by any means sub par), but for a school that focuses on inclusiveness and individualized attention, it's perfect. Also keep in mind, for high schools, some videos are more geared towards the parents and some towards the students, two very different target audiences.
 
I also do some work like eg for various schools/academies in Connecticut (these don't even like being called 'high schools' even though they are), and parents do love these kind of videos (and pay a lot of $$$ for them).

Plus it's fun content that the school can use on their website and/or social media in the never-ending journey of building their brand and shaping their image.
 
Since I work in education, I have to ask one question... How are these distributed? I'll assume that they are individually sent to each student, not made available from any website (unless secured with a password). If it was publicly available, even by happenstance, it would violate FERPA laws. Just something to make sure you are on the clear side of things, leave distro. completely up to the client so you don't get caught in any violations.

Otherwise, it looks good and assuming they are using a phone to view it, the vertical format was probably the correct choice.
 
Short answer is that the client is in control of distribution. Delivered via a unique link on their server/website.

But out of curiousity, even if it were public, would simply having a name of an applicant violate FERPA? A name that could refer to anyone if its a common name. Does it apply to any school (even private school) or are not all schools under FERPA?
 
I hadn't thought of that, but in the UK too, our GDPR rules would possibly apply - as you have a name and a school - making ID very simple.


One question - how do they do continuity when clearly you shot some material on one day, and presumably the different names one after the other? How long did it take?
 
paulears said:
One question - how do they do continuity when clearly you shot some material on one day, and presumably the different names one after the other? How long did it take?
Click to expand...

The only shot that needed to be repeated/personalized was the first one. I made sure to make it a very short and easily repeatsble shot. The hand over the camera lens hides the cut. It literally took 5 minutes to do 60 names. The rest is VO or live text in premiere.
 
The short answer is yes. We aren't even allowed to tell police, FBI, Secret Service, etc. if a student is enrolled. We often get people applying for jobs that need security clearances, so these high level enforcement offices are often asking about students. They are to be referred to the President's (of the college) office for the info that they need.
 
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