Why is a good question!
One of our students happens to be an TV/Movie actor, writer, and now aspiring director. He took an incredible amount of initiative in producing a “professional quality” video that he thought could be used to impact a very large number of people inside and outside of our school. Videos, simply put, are an incredibly efficient and effective way to spread the message of FIRST. You can post them on YouTube and link them to massive numbers in a matter of seconds, spreading the message. The video format is an incredibly powerful tool, argubaly far more powerful than a stand-and-speak presentation that can only be seen once by those present at the time.
This particular grade 10 student worked hard to acquire a sponsorship from a local entertainment company to provide cameras and sound equipment for a 1-day shoot for this video. He acted as the director, producer and editor. The storyboard, interview questions, lighting, robot shadow backdrops, cut lists, scheduling were all handled by him and his team of students. The other mentors and I kind of stood in awe as we saw these students run what was essentially a pro-level 1-day shoot happening in parallel and unobtrusively with one of our most hectic late-build season days.
I think they took over 3 hours of footage that day, and it was an experience I’ll never forget - being pulling into the school’s theatre at my scheduled interview time, walking on to a stage that had been meticuloulsy lit to project team-coloured robot vignettes onto a backdrop. Walking to the sound guy to have a wireless mic fished down the back of my shirt for my interview. Sitting in the interview chair on stage…
… and being GRILLED by STUDENTS to
- watch the umms and pauses
- answer the question again
- shorten the response
- answer the question again
- shorten the response
- answer the question again
- stop staring blanky into a rolling camera thinking about the answer to the question while everyone in the room glares at you impatiently
- sit up straight in the chair
- close my legs
- answer the question again
- shorten the response
- answer the question again
- shorten the response
- watch the umms and pauses
- answer the question again
- (AWKWARD!!!)
- shorten the response
- answer the question again
- okay great, question 1 of 10 done…
A harrowing, but completely satisfying experience once they finally got something acceptable. Even better was getting to watch the “best” footage that was selected (Do I really do that with my hands when I talk? Apparently I do…)
When the video was finally completed, we looked at it, and critically evaluated it against doing a stand-and-speak presentation… simply put: it did a far more effective job detailing our Chairman’s work than stand-and-speak ever could. It was concise, immersive, entertaining, jam packed with meaningful content, but paced so it could all be processed, and had no wasted moments. As engineers, when presented with two options, we tend to choose what we feel objectively is the most effective one. The video was the most effective - hands down.
To address Wendy Holladay’s VERY valid points about developing our students’ presentation skills:
The actual creation of the video gave the students an unbelievable opportunity to refine their skills. Instead of just 3 students who did the chairman’s presentation, at least a dozen were involved in the filming and interview process, and went through everything I did above. As a mentor I can say I learned a LOT that day about how I present myself to others. Many others had a chance to witness the process from the sidelines, helping with the editing of the video, and critiquing the weird presentation mannerisms we all have that were caught on film. Those 3 students would STILL get the opportunity to present during the remainder of the time, and answer questions as well.
But back to the original question:
Is showing a video during the presentation illegal? Are videos played during the presentation disregarded or penalized vs the stand-and-speak format?