High School Music Video Challenge tips

A few weeks ago, The Vindicator announced a High School Music Video Challenge. Students at area high schools are encouraged to make a video with an anti-bullying message based on JD Eicher & The Goodnights’ song “I’d Like To Get To Know You.”

Considering the strong media production programs at local schools, creating a music video should be a simple task, not to mention a lot of fun.

Aside from the exposure a winning video will bring to your school via The Vindicator and anti-bullying PSAs, you get a free JD Eicher acoustic concert at your school just for signing up.

You might also get to hone your social media campaign skills. Let’s face it — if you’re creating a cool lip-dub music video, you should tell people about it and where to view it. Friends, family, teachers and students should all hear about your video, and share it with others. Who knows? Maybe your video will go viral.

Here are some tips for creating that winning music video:

1. Find your friends and make some new ones. The judges want to see people and community. For you this means “students” and your “school.” Recruit your friends, and go out of your way to get other students involved. Also, go into the places and spaces of your school that most people never really see (I was always a little freaked out by the boiler room at our school).

2. What’s the message? Be clear about the message you’re trying to send. Remember that this video should focus on themes of “acceptance, friendship and anti-bullying.”

One of the best things you can do before ever picking up a camera is to storyboard the video. It’s the equivalent of seeing the entire video on paper before you shoot it. To learn how to storyboard like the pros, go to nofilmschool.com and search for “storyboard tips.”

3. Find the techies and thespians. Every school has them. I was an ambitious techie at my school. We also had a lot of aspiring Oscar nominees. More importantly, if you don’t know the students with tech skills and acting chops, this is even more of a reason to get out there and meet them.

Once you’ve assembled your team, be sure to give everyone responsibilities. Everyone should feel a sense of ownership in the project.

4. Get out the vote. Once the video is complete, and you’ve submitted the video to schoolvideo@vindy.com, getting people to vote for your video will be the next step. This is where social media comes in. Drive people to vote for your video via a mini social media campaign.

To get votes, use some traditional channels in your school for sharing voting information (e.g., morning announcements, school newspaper, posters) as well as internal social media platforms (e.g., Drund, Facebook pages).

Good luck and remember, you must register your school by emailing schoolvideo@vindy.com no later than this Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. All videos should be completed and submitted by Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015.

Dr. Adam Earnheardt is chairman of the Department of Communication at Youngstown State University. You can follow him on Twitter at @adamearn.