Q: You are an instructional video consultant for the Learning and Teaching Consulting Group. Tell us a little about the work you do.
A: My job is two-fold. The first thing I do is manage the LSA Technology Services video production team where we create course content videos requested by instructors. We also create tutorial videos for LSA departments and for the LSA Technology Services’ website. The second half of my job is helping individual instructors navigate video technology for their courses, such as video projects. I assist students with using video and audio equipment to complete class assignments.
Q: Can you share a bit about your background and how you became interested in video production?
A: Unbeknownst to myself, I was actually always interested in video production and didn't really realize it. I always had a camera, either a photo camera or a video camera, but it wasn't until my late twenties that I realized it was a passion of mine. I was working in a desktop support position and decided on a Thursday that I wanted to go back to school and started classes on Monday. I originally thought, since I spent a lot of my time watching documentaries, that I would study sociology but on a whim I took a video production class too. The first time I directed someone in front of the camera things clicked and I realized this is what I really wanted to do with my life. I went to Washtenaw Community College for video production, then transferred to Michigan where I graduated in 2013. After graduating, I started working as a BlueCorps Advisor for LSA and it just all kind of fell together. There was a need for someone to do more video production work and video consulting, which led me to the role I am in now.
Q: How has the global pandemic and working remotely affected your job and the work you do?
A: On the video production end it's affected us quite a bit. A lot of our video production work is done in-person, and involves people working very closely together, so that's been very difficult. We've had two video production days since lockdown started and it was really stressful because everyone had to keep distant and wear masks all day. In addition, demand for this type of content has been low as people focus on class resilience. On the other end, helping individual instructors has definitely exploded. People are really trying to figure out how students can create video content and record themselves in this remote environment, such as using devices they have in their own homes and software that is available for free. A lot of what I've been doing now is figuring out what options students have for creating video content using Adobe Creative Cloud, mobile apps, and smart phones for their video production needs. We have also been trying to gear up and improve our animation creation abilities for people who want to create those types of videos.
Q: What would be one or two of your most helpful tips for faculty using video in their teaching?
A: My top tip would be to avoid playing video over video conferencing. The best way to share video with students during a remote class is to make the video available on Canvas. During the class session, give students a break from the video conference call to watch the video. Have them stop sharing their video and mute their sound while watching the video, then when everyone is done watching the video they can turn their video and sound back on for discussion. The reason for this is that video conferencing prioritizes audio over video which means that, at the expense of video, when there is an internet connection that is not optimal it is going to make sure there is no break in audio, but there may be breaks in video. So, what happens is if you play video over a video conference, it may not play at the right frame rate for students to watch and it's going to drop frames, miss a frame, or skip frames which is very unwatchable to say the least. Unless you have a really high-end machine and a high-end internet connection, you're putting a lot of strain on your device to send that video. It may play fine on your device but it is not going to come across well on other people's connections.
The second tip would be that there are enough free or freely available software and apps to students to be able to do video production work with, with cell phones only. Everything is available pretty much on the phone. Whether it's through Adobe Creative Cloud or if they have Apple products through iMovie.
Q: What is the best part of your job? What gets you excited about coming to work?
A: I have an answer that's related to my job function and then a real answer. The answer related to my job function is that I like being able to see the impact of the work I do. I enjoy being able to see how many students are now able to use a camera and edit their own videos. It is very satisfying to see and makes me really excited to do more!
What is closer to the real answer, is that faculty are doing really exciting work and I've always been someone who has way more interests academically and personally than I have time really to do. So, for me to sit down with somebody from literally any department in LSA and have a conversation about what they're teaching and help them figure out how they could utilize video technology is very rewarding. I enjoy having conversations with faculty about what they are passionate about. If someone has a super interesting class, I want to hear more about it. It’s a way of continually learning from the faculty that I interact with which is absolutely awesome!
Q: How do you keep up with new technologies and trends inside and outside the workplace?
A: It sounds kind of silly, but for me it’s keeping up with influencers. A lot of our profession is driven by social media influencers. We don't have a huge production team, like television studios do. I have two or three people on my team so we are doing small-scale production work. Most social media influencers are similar in scale and have maybe one or two people helping them create content. So, seeing the way they're innovating their jobs is really helpful. That, combined with keeping abreast of what technology is coming out, helps us stay on top of what's new in the industry. Sites like B&H Photo allows us to see what new equipment is available and how we might incorporate it into our work. I also look at new features coming out in the editing softwares we use. A good example of this recently was when I attended Adobe's conference virtually last month. One of the newer features in Adobe Creative Cloud, specifically in Adobe Premiere Pro, is something called team projects, where you can share a project with other people, upload proxies of the video files, and multiple people can edit the same project. Everything can now be uploaded into a shared storage solution and everyone on my team can edits the projects.
Q: When you are out of the office, what interests or hobbies do you enjoy?
A: I tend to switch hobbies like every 30 days because I get these brief, but very intense, periods where I'm into something. However, a few hobbies have stayed with me. I'm really into cooking and exploring different ways of preparing and fusing a variety of ingredients. I'm also really into video games, especially retro video games.
Q: What is your favorite film?
A: I don't really like picking a favorite, but I will mention that I think my favorites are movies like The Shining. There's an Akira Kurosawa (Japanese film director) movie called Ikuru, which legitimately changed my life. The types of movies I really get into are visually striking with a lot of subtext. One of my favorite genres would be horror. Every October I attempt to watch over 60 horror movies. I think horror allows us to safely talk about and process trauma, anxieties, and fears we have. Horror films are also a great vehicle for examining society and how we live in it, as well as the darker sides of what we have to deal with as humans. I thought this year was going to be very hard to watch horror movies but actually made it kind of easier because nothing is scarier than what is happening in real life right now due to the global pandemic.
Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you?
A: First is that I was actually born in Germany, although, I don't remember any of my time in Germany. I came back to the U.S. as a toddler.
The second thing, the one I think is more interesting, is that I'm really into weightlifting. I picked it up recently and I have taken a real liking to it. It was surprising to me to find out that I really liked it. I was looking at Facebook and somebody in the neighborhood asked if anyone would want to come to the gym with them every morning at 5:00am, and on a whim, I said yes. I had not gone to the gym for years. I found that I hated cardio so I gravitated towards the weights. For the first month or two, I was not very coordinated until I got a trainer who moonlights as a professional wrestler. He introduced me to powerlifting and I really pushed myself. It got really addicting, to say the least. I've come to really enjoy it despite the prolonged muscle pain afterwards. It's nice to kind of stumble upon something new that you would never in a million years think you would do or enjoy.
I also think that people would be surprised to learn that I am a big fan of professional wrestling because people tend to think of it as a really low brow form of entertainment. And most times it is, but it is also one of the only live performance art styles still out there. The actual art itself is really fascinating to be able to make things look like they hurt without actually getting hurt yourself. The athleticism is just incredible.
