Client: Ithaca College Television (ICTV)
Project Type: School
Position: Editor
Timeline: December 2018
Programs Used: Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition
In December of 2018 I was asked by the producers of the show ICTV Reports to create their promo for the spring semester. I must have done a good job because the promo would go on to win two Spectrum PEGASYS Awards and one New York State Broadcasters Association Award.
PROCESS
At ICTV every show is required to submit a 30 second ad to play on the station every semester. They had an idea of what they wanted and a song they had in mind. I received a list of the adjectives to put into the video and came up with the idea to use text outlines instead of just black slates between clips.
The first thing I did was take the song we chose for the promo into Audition. It was slightly too long so I edited it down to be exactly thirty seconds.
The next thing I did was comb through all the previous episodes of ICTV Reports there were on archive and find the best shots. It took some real effort to find shots that weren't either the anchor sitting at the desk speaking, a two camera interview, or a shot of two people walking down a hallway, but I did it eventually. They also shot some behind the scenes footage from the control room during the filming of an episode which I was able to use too.
Then I just edited the video together, synching it to the music as best as I could and there it was.
AWARDS
The last thing I expected was for this project to get nominated for awards. When I learned about the nominations I didn't even know awards for college TV advertisements were even a thing, it turns out they are. Apparently, producers of a show are allowed to submit materials to the school, which the school in turn can submit for awards.
The first awards it won were at the 2019 Spectrum PEGASYS Awards. PEGASYS is the local public access TV station in Ithaca, where ICTV shows can compete with locally produced programming. I got to go down to their station in Ithaca Commons on a snowy March night and found out that my dinky little ad won Best Promo, and since the three judges had given it an average score of 9.5/10, it also won Best Education Access Programming which I found pretty funny since it was just a 30 second ad.
The third award it won was definitely a bit more prestigious. I got to travel down to Binghamton in April to attend the New York State Broadcasting Association's Excellence in Broadcasting Awards. This was a state award instead of a local one, so it had both a college category and a professional category. The ad won best college promotion or advertisement.
The final award it won was at the 2019 National Student Production Awards. This was a big deal because it's a national award which is something I hadn't thought was possible going in. My ad is the first thing from ICTV to be nominated for a CBI since 2017.
If I had to reflect as to why it won so many awards, I think it would be because of the execution. The idea for the ad was nothing particularly groundbreaking, but I think I just executed the idea the best it could be.
Here are some pictures of me attempting to look presentable and accept the awards. Unfortunately, the school gets to keep all the fancy trophies.
