Knowledge Base

You have 60 seconds (OR LESS) to wow the short attention spans of students. You want to make sure your video stands out amongst the info overload of peak times like o-week.  

• Introduce yourself and the department, explain a little bit about what your department does and drop hints of what's in the pipeline for the rest of the year.
  

• Mentional regular events coming up (not your SummerFest event more like collectives etc to keep the content relevant throughout the year)
  

• Give them a glimpse of who you really are, don't be afraid to show some personality :D
  

• Let them know where they can stay up to date with your department (follow Instagram, subscribe to newsletter, etc.
  

Lighting: Film in a well-lit space so you can be seen clearly. Use your hand to find a spot with smooth lighting (if your hand looks well-lit and smooth, it's a good place to film! See example of this lighting test here)

Shot: Keep the camera at eye-level and look straight into it when you’re speaking. People respond well to a ‘human’ connection, so let them see your vibrant face. Give them a good idea of who they’ll become buddies with if they join your department or come to your event. 

Framing: Leave extra space in the shot around the edges of the frame, and try to avoid moving in and out of shot too much. 

Background: Filming on campus is a good way to signal to students that you're part of their University community. However, keep the background simple, and not overly distracting. 

Sound: Watch out for background noise. It’s ideal to film indoors for this reason, but if you’d like to film outdoors, we recommend using a microphone that connects directly to your device, and avoiding high winds.

Use your Phone: We highly recommend filming with your phone. It has the correct aspect ratio by default, and will likely have a decent camera and microphone. 

Editing: You may want to add things like music, headings, cuts, or supplementary footage. You can do most of these things in any mobile editing software. We recommend using the in-built Instagram editor, CapCut, or Kapwing if you prefer in-browser editing\. 

*ALWAYS check your footage back after filming it.  Check the lighting AND the audio AND the framing – everything!  It’s best to do a few test runs of your video before your final take, just to make sure everything is working as it should be. There’s nothing worse than looking back at your work to find that you can only hear trams bustling by, or someone’s had their thumb over the lens the whole time!

Captioning is now an expected practice with videos. Not only does it cater to those who are hard of hearing, but also ensures that nothing you’re saying is being missed by your audience.

You’ll find some handy hints on this process in this article, and we recommend Kapwing as a pretty user-friendly platform. Many socials apps now have built-in voice-to-text generation, which is generally fine. Just be careful to speak as clearly as you can, as these are not perfect.

Always review your captions (and your video) before you send them into the universe, voice-to-text mistakes can get pretty cringe!