Planning a Video
When telling the story of our impressive students, staff and faculty, it is important to look for opportunities to let them tell their story in their own voice. This will help you tell their story and the university’s story in a genuine, authentic way. Here are some basic tips to ensure your videos are on brand and optimized.
Be Visually Interesting
When shooting videos for an external audience, the first shot of your video could be the first time that person sees our campus. Look for opportunities to highlight iconic spaces around campus that give you a sense of the place — from historic spaces like Alamance, Under the Oaks and Young Commons to newer additions like Sankey Hall, Snow Atrium and Innovation Quad. Try to incorporate banners that have the university mark into your interviews or stand ups whenever possible.
Stay on Brand
Elon University communicates to audiences in many ways through broadcast and online video. Uniformity and consistency across all communication are critical in reinforcing our identity. When creating a video, please refer to our visual identity and keep these guidelines in mind:
- An official Elon University signature must appear at the beginning and/or end of all external videos. For on-campus videos, use the closing screen to further identify your unit or division.
- Myriad Pro is the preferred font for video and can be downloaded online. If you don’t have access to Myriad, similar sans-serif fonts are acceptable substitutes (Open Sans, Roboto, etc.)
Keep ADA Compliance in Mind
All campus partners producing public-facing video media must ensure the content is accessible to the deaf and hearing-impaired with accurate captions, as required by law and university policy. This will help ensure that you reach the university’s entire audience and add value to your video.
- Audio levels for speakers and voiceovers should be normalized to -6db and never go above 0. If you are using a music bed, audio levels should peak near –27db. Once you have mixed your audio to the appropriate levels, you should easily hear the speaker. If the music bed still sounds loud in contrast to the VO, use your best judgment to adjust the music bed.
- If you incorporate infographics or logos, be sure to reference university guidelines and standards. Also, make sure that the text is easy to read and that there is a sharp contrast to the background. If you are using graphics over video, the graphics should not block vital details from your scene. Viewers should be able to easily see and understand what is happening in the video as well as read the graphics.
- Consider how and where the video will be used. If the video is going to be shared through social media channels, consider embedding captions into your video so that people can read along with your video rather than listen. If the video player you are using offers Closed Captioning, make sure to update the captions or upload a .srt file along with your video. Captions must accurately reflect the dialogue in your video.
- When exporting the video, use the best export settings possible based on the platform you will share the video on.