What was the WCVPC?
I started the video production club at my High School with the goal of finding others who were interested in making videos like me. This page highlights the videos that came out of this club that I'm most proud of.
Sports Recap Video Series
When I started the Video Production Club, I was approached by the student body Sports Representative to make a video for the year-end sports rally. My fellow club members wanted the video to mostly consist of student-athlete interviews. Because of this, the video turned out to be really dull. The following year I decided that I could do better so I challenged myself to reinvent the video to make it more engaging. I added artistic shots of the school and athletes along with unique angles of real games. Now, I can proudly say that I have completed a Sports Recap Video for every year of my time in high school...
(The essay on making this series is continued below.)
West Campus HS Class of 2020 Slide Show
For my senior class I signed up to be incharge of making our senior side show. I recruited several people to help me sort through the thousands of photos people submitted to be as well as most notably William T. who helped me edit the video until 5am the day it was going to show and created all of the motion titles.
As well I included some of the all of the photos and footage I had captured during my time at West to supplement all of the photos submitted.
Food Drive Documentary
A fellow club member I documented the process of the donating our school's canned food drive. Ernest Strauhal edited the video and wrote and recored the voiceover. This project ended up be recognized as a finalist in the Sacramento Educational Video Awards for the High School Documentary category.
Sports Recap Video Series (Continued...)
... To complete the sport recap video I filmed one or two games played by each of the 28 teams my school offered. Over the course of the project, I spent countless days editing everything together, an enormous undertaking. I tried reaching out for help to spread out the workload but sometimes struggled to communicate my vision and organize the assistance. Plus, working with others proved to be difficult because they didn’t prioritize the project and were unreliable. These hurdles pushed me to improve my time management skills so I would be able to complete the video independently while meeting my other commitments.
Even so, the challenge of constantly outdoing myself kept me working on this project, which ensured that each year’s video was better than the last. This gave me a place to experiment and try out all of my best ideas. For example, what if I flew my drone during live games so athletes could be seen from above? Or what if I put an action camera behind a basketball hoop or goalpost? Or what if I made it look like my school’s teams are on TV? I was inspired by sports broadcasts and promotional materials, GoPro videos, and other filmmaking styles and techniques on the internet. This project forced me to learn while I was recreating what inspired me.
Each year I knew that all my hard work and time had paid off because of what happened when I played the video for the whole school. The energy in the gym was tremendous because everyone knew what was coming. My peers got the same excitement and adrenaline rush I got while creating the video, except now it was a collective experience.
For the 2020 video, I had to stop filming because school closed and games were canceled due to COVID-19. After a long break, ASB and I decided that I should still push forward and finish the video with what I did film and dedicate it to those who didn’t get to play. I had to adapt my original plans and create new ones such as having athletes send in recordings that I used to create an epic voice over. ASB and I worked to make it a school event by spreading the word with our school communication channels along with a Youtube feature that has a live chat, viewer count, and a countdown to a real-time premiere. While it wasn’t quite the same as being together in the gym, 150 people watched it live and over 1,200 have watched it since! Every year my videos helped the sports rally fill its purpose of pumping up school spirit. And because of this, I feel proud that I could contribute my creative strengths to empower my school community.
