There’s no such thing as “downtime” for CATS videographer Michael Babcock; his work is always in demand, and the past few months have been no exception.
“Over the last two years, we’ve averaged over a video per week out of this office,” said Babcock, whose
award-winning work is featured all over EIU’s website and is also used for
recruiting purposes when prospective students are on
campus for visits.
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| Babcock captures footage of band students at Mattoon Middle School |
Throughout the summer, one of Babcock’s projects has been to film nearly 50 short interviews with faculty
members from all four of EIU’s colleges to get their
perspectives on being educators.
“The whole thought was to have short little glimpses into their personalities,” said Babcock of his faculty subjects, “to give a prospective student an idea of who they’ll someday have in a classroom.”
Babcock says the short pieces have an intentionally low production value in order to make them feel as candid and relaxed as possible. If they’re well-received and the university’s colleges and academic departments find them effective and useful, additional faculty members will be approached.
“This was kind of a test,” said Babcock. “If we feel like they work, we’ll do more of them when more faculty are around.”
In an effort to secure footage for several outcome pieces to be featured on EIU 360, Babcock also made a quick trip to Nashville along with student assistant Chris Boswell and Jay Grabiec, whose photos will also be used online and in recruiting pieces.
The team caught up with five successful Eastern alumni during that two-day, one-night trip, procuring enough material for at least as many videos. Babcock says the scheduling for such a quick trip is definitely a challenge but totally worthwhile.
“Logistics are tough when scheduling, but the end result is a ton of good content that can be useful in a variety of ways,” Babcock said, adding that the experience is particularly invaluable to Boswell as he sharpens his skills. A similar trip was taken to Chicago in Fall 2014, and Babcock says the hope is to head back north for a second time this semester.
Aside from Boswell, Babcock has received extensive help from Frank Lanham, an unpaid summer intern and a junior film major at the University of Notre Dame but hails from Charleston and is home for the summer months. In exchange for some credit hours, he has provided an extra pair of capable hands on many of Babcock’s
summer projects.
“Frank picks things up really quickly,” said Babcock. “When I communicate an idea or concept, he understands immediately.”
Said Lanham, “For me, it’s been great to interact with the equipment here and get some time working with all the editing software – just logging time. I’m getting ready to take some more advanced production classes at Notre Dame, and this’ll give me a good head start.”
It remains to be seen, but Lanham may very well have lent a hand on some award-winning work. Babcock’s videos have been entered in many competitions over the past few years, bringing home some impressive hardware. Take the Case V Awards, for example: his video for the “An Appetite For Change” story on EIU 360 beat out 47 other entries from prestigious universities (like Harvard, for instance) from all across the nation. Here’s what the judges had to say about it:
“This video did a fantastic job of taking a subject and topic that wouldn’t normally be visual and made it so. We liked that the video bridged teaching and research effectively and made the research relevant. The story connected academics and the classroom to the research, and it connected the students to the teacher. The artistic opening shots (such as panning the mailbox) were beautiful. These subtle artistic effects throughout the video brought out an emotional reaction to the piece. Technically, this video was well-edited and produced, and had a compelling aesthetic style. It fell in line closest to good cinematography (different frame rates, matching to the music). This can be a difficult subject to capture on video, but they delivered the message perfectly.”
For Information regarding this story, please contact: wdwhite@eiu.edu
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