SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ONE OF THE FUNNIEST AND CUTEST VIDEOS EVER!
“I’d like to thank the Academy….”
How many people who work in TV and film get to say that and actually MEAN it?
Very few.
A couple years back, I had the privilege of winning a National Student Television Award for Excellence, an honor given to only seven videos a year.
The award is given out by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, (NATAS) the professional group that sponsors the Emmy Awards. The award I was part of is given out by the academy to high school video production students. I was the teacher. My third year students won first place nationally for an original comedy Christmas special, An Enchanting Holiday.
Needless to say, we were all thrilled! The award is considered the equivalent of a high school Emmy.
We won a free trip to NYC to attend the awards banquet held at Time Warner headquarters in Manhattan. Soledad O’Brien of CNN was the MC.
Here is a newspaper article and picture of us holding our gorgeous glass statue. (It looks better in person!)
The ten-minute show took nearly three months to produce. It wasn’t finished until after Christmas. Ooops. The Emmy people didn’t care. Actually, I don’t think we even told them that part!
In my opinion, Enchanting Holiday won because it was a great story. Yes, the technical aspects of the video are superb. (If I do say so myself!) The kids were whizzes on Final Cut Pro, (the editing software). Several of the effects required integrating Photoshop into Final Cut, which is extremely advanced editing. They also spent a lot of time making incredible costumes, sets and props. We worked hard on achieving quality lighting and videotaping everything from interesting angles. But what put Enchanting Holiday over the top was the STORY.
If you have read much of my video production advice, you know that I am a BIG advocate of story. A compelling story wins out over technical wizardry every time. Think about the movies you like. A movie can have all the special effects in the world, but if the story is boring, the movie will bomb.
The story for An Enchanting Holiday is quite complex. Even though ten minutes might not seem very long, to fill a ten-minute video, you have to have A LOT to say. In the video world, ten minutes is a LOOOONG time.
Enchanting Holiday is actually four stories within one video. First, there is the story of the show host, Noel. As host, Noel introduces three other stories, much like a newscaster introduces stories. Then, all four stories are integrated at the end to make them one. In my opinion, the show would not be NEARLY as good if we had not integrated all the stories at the end. This is a common technique called coming full circle.
Having observed lots of people watching the show, I can easily say that the point of integration is when the audience starts cheering and totally falls in love with the show.
Sound complex? Well, it is. Sort of. But not really. Watch an Enchanting Holiday and see what I mean! I GUARANTEE you will love it. Tomorrow, I will do a second post with more behind-the-scenes information on how we produced this video.
If you’d like to learn more about the making of this video, click here.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips
Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
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2 Comment(s)
By emmy award on | Reply
I came across this blog – interesting read
By Internet Video Gal on | Reply
Thank you so much!
Have fun reading and please contact us if you have any specific topics you would like to see discussed.
Lorraine Grula