With the presidential election dominating the fall semester, students from both multimedia editing and campaigns and elections classes collaborated to create campaign ads.
This process was done in order to give students in both classes an idea of how actual campaigns work. Neill Prewitt, the multimedia editing professor, said the assignment gave students a chance to experience the teamwork that is common in high-level video production.
“We collaborated with the Campaigns & Elections class to gain experience in real-world video production,” said Prewitt, “where video producers are creative teams who work with clients to solve their communication needs.”
The two mock candidates, Kristina Cass and Moe Amangele, shared their outlook on how they wanted to portray themselves for a specific commercial, and the multimedia students tried to convey that message in an advertisement.
Teams of three to five students worked with each candidate to shoot the commercial and meet to discuss how it should look, emulating the constant meetings that these types of productions are infamous for involving.
Multimedia editing students were told to engage with the candidate in order to create a more natural look for the product. Another key challenge was to mix both visual and audio elements that so that they flowed and kept the interest of the viewer.
Candidate Cass enjoyed the experience. She said it improved her outlook on pursuing politics after college.
“The video production aspect was helpful in understanding how much work goes all into these types of things,” said Cass. “Collaborating on a project like this has me excited for what we can do in the future.”