Students at multimedia agency 99 West are working to create a promotional kickstarter campaign video for a client’s compact grill invention, scheduled for completion by Thanksgiving break.
99 West is a co-curricular activity for multimedia majors that was established in the Spring of 2013. 99 West gives students professional multimedia experience by providing them with resources and projects to work on, sometimes from outside clients.
Cade White, instructor in the department of journalism and mass communication and faculty adviser for 99 West, said like other clients, he received an email inquiry to their services and it seemed like a good fit for the team.
“99 West tries to work with a professional client every semester, not only for the financial benefits to help keep our operation running but definitely for the practical experience the students get,” White said. “Working for a real client is something that really doesn’t compare to a self-made project.”
Their client is a local business man and entrepreneur who has designed and created a new product he wants to sell through a kick starter campaign. The campaign video will feature the product that is a uniquely designed portable grill that packs up into a compact size and expands out into a useful-sized grill.
“Our client came up with the idea when he was traveling extensively, he and his wife, in an RV and wishing he had the functionality of his big grill at home,” White said.
The students create the shot list, set up locations, schedule times and find actors needed for the video campaign. Hannah McIntyre, co-director for the project at 99 West and junior multimedia major from Keller, said the biggest thing she has had to learn throughout the project is time management.
“We took this client three weeks ago and we did our first film shoot last Tuesday,” McIntyre said. “It was intense, having to figure out how to get all these different things together and be able to do a shoot that Tuesday. There’s so many things that go into it that you don’t think about.”
The entire video will feature five different locations. The scenarios will feature a picnic cookout, a football tailgate party and an R.V. campground cookout. White said the team is a little more than halfway through the productions.
“The production has been pretty intense with several different production scenarios being shot in different locations,” White said. “Overall it’s been a great experience for the students. They’ve done a great job working with the client and the skills that they are learning are immensely valuable to their professional development.”
There are 8-10 students on the 99 West team working on the project, all responsible for different roles.
“It’s been really fun,” McIntyre said. “We’ve had a lot of good experiences working with our client, just kind of figuring out what it takes to actually do this. I’ve never really been a part of a client video before or done anything like this. So, being a part of pre-production and figuring out what it takes to do this is really fun and an exciting opportunity. But also I feel like our team has really thrived.”
White said the project has been a little more compressed and intense than he’d like but after good conversations about whether or not to tackle the project, they decided they could do it.
“We felt like we could meet his deadline and we knew that it was going to be a formidable challenge, but I am confident that my students can rise to that challenge,” White said.
Once completed, the promotional video will be uploaded to the client’s kick starter campaign page where people can pre-order the product and help fund the campaign for the product.
