This portfolio represents my work throughout an independent study focusing on Video Journalism. This independent study was conducted in the fall of my senior year of high school. I created video stories about things that were going on at Strath Haven High School. I hope you enjoy my work.
This video story covers the distribution of the 2021-2022 yearbook. The yearbook team got to distribute the yearbooks at an assembly this year, which was new since Covid. This video includes interviews with the yearbooks co-editors and they discuss what their process in creating this yearbook has been.
The goal of this video was to spread awareness about a college and career counseling center that opened up this year. In this video, I spoke with Mrs. Dunning about how the College & Career Center is doing now and what she hopes it will do in the future.
One thing that I had learned in the past, but got reinforced in the production of this video is that you can always use more b-roll.
One day while I was sitting in class, Mr. Jordan came in talking about how Mr. Keaveney had made him a Eagles suit. I, along with most other students, did not know that Mr. Keaveney had a love of sewing. This was a very fun video to create because I got to learn about a history teacher's hidden talent and talk with Mr. Jordan about something he was excited for.
In October, the Strath Haven students who were studying French, had students from France come and visit. The Strath Haven kids wanted to give the French students a very American experience so they traveled to Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, Strath Haven High School, Linvilla Farms, and more.
In the production of this video, I interviewed a couple of French students, which was very interesting. I learned about their experience with school and how school looks different in America than it does in France.
Romeo and Juliet was the fall drama produced at Strath Haven this year. I got the opportunity to spend a rehearsal with the cast and learn about their journey to opening night.
One thing that the production of this video alluded to me is the importance of focus statements. After this video, I tried to do a better job at creating a focus statement and sticking to it.
This was my first time using the wireless interview mics so that was very exciting!
Mr. Shankweiler has worked at Strath Haven for over 40 years. His kind and spontaneous personality has greatly impacted my life, along with the lives of many others. I thought it would be interesting to hear from students' perspectives what he does and what they appreciate about him.
I enjoyed looking back at videos of past performances and using some of those performance videos as b-roll for this story.
Throughout this semester, I enjoyed growing in my ability to put video stories together. Before this year, all of my work had not been in the form of a story and I found it very beneficial to have to turn each focus statement into a story, instead of simply a collage or something like that. I feel like I learned the importance of a voiceover and focus statement because those two things helped me give context and specificity to the video stories. I am also very grateful that I now have all this experience under my belt. I would love to continue to work in this area after high school and college and I think the experiences I have had during this independent study will help me do better in years to come.