Yep, there's an app for WKU

WKU released an iOS, Blackberry and Android app in the summer of 2010. As part of the promotional effort to inform students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni of the app's launch a promotional video was commissioned by the WKU Information Technology Division. (Disclosure: WKU-ETV is a department within WKU-IT.)

The app itself was based on "Blackboard Mobile Central" . The natural first place to go with a promotional video about an application for mobile devices seemed to be allowing a heavy influence from the commercials promoting the Apple App Store, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Armed with the idea of paying tribute to the simple white background of iOS device commercials, we set off to our studio to shoot a round tests for the production. Utilizing the existing white cyc wall, a pair of Kino Flo Diva-Lite 400's for cyc lights, a pair of Diva-Lite 200's for the foreground, Sony PMW-EX3 XDCAM EX Camcorder, Sachtler 0450 tripod system, a volunteer hand model and an iPhone.

We quickly discovered that 'simple' was not the word to describe the process. What I meant to say was "Wow, that's very difficult to pull off and they make it look so easy, but real people breathe and have a heartbeat!" After reviewing the test footage (and deleting it so no one would ever know how poor of an imitation we attempted was), the decision was made to use screenshots from the app along with a mock up of an iPhone to create a completely virtual demonstration for the video.

Now armed with just the iWKU app, an iPhone, Photoshop CS5, Avid Media Composer 5 and an IPhone GUI Photoshop file from teehan+lax . I was able to recreate the experience of a simple white background and iDevice in the foreground displaying the various functions of the app. No need to worry about lights, tripods, cameras or heartbeats. This approach proved to be incredibly simple to execute with a pleasing result.

The entire process took about three hours from start to finish. I used the iPhone 4 to capture the screen shots of iWKU's features and transferred those into Photoshop. Where I used the iPhone GUI template file to place the screenshots into the device. Next I pulled all my files into Avid Media Composer 5 and quickly edited and exported a file for review.

The review process went quite well and we ended up with two versions of the video a 75 second and a 30 second version. Both were shown to prospective students and their parents at various WKU events, along with being embedded into the iWKU Support page.

- Jordan, Special Projects Producer

iWKU Promo - Version A from WKU ETV - PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

iWKU Promo - Version B from WKU ETV - PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

Location:Bowling Green, KY

WKU Admissions Video

It was a no brainer to use our recently acquired Sony PDW 700 XDCAM HD Cameras on WKU’s new admissions video. WKU’s campus is perhaps one of the most beautiful in the region and the HD format really allowed us to showcase the campus throughout the video.

We were going to need a wide variety of footage since one of the goals of the video is to give prospective students a really good sense of life at WKU. This meant that we would need locations on campus at different times of year and all the different events, activities, and academic prospects that take place on the hill. This created an interesting production workflow, since some of the footage could be acquired in more controlled set ups, while other shots were more “grab the camera and go” types of shoots when we would spot something on campus that we felt would fit perfectly in the project. The end result was footage that really illustrates WKU’s wonderful campus, while also giving the audience a real sense of daily life at the university.


WKU Admissions Video from WKU ETV - PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

The First Post: An Introduction

Welcome to our little slice of the Internet, thanks for taking the time to check us out!

For those of you unfamiliar with The Educational Television Services Department at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY... Don't worry, chances are you're among the majority! Not because we're new kids on the block, we've been around since at least the 60's. It's more because most people know us as WKYU-PBS and/or HSSN. For this blog feel free to call us WKU ETV. While some of the content shared here may also appear somewhere else in our distribution model, distribution will not be the focus of this effort. Instead we hope to provide the view point of the people who create the content that we share here.

This blog is in the early stages of development but as we move forward with adding content we invite you to check back and see just what we're up to.

We'll begin by catching you up on some of our recent projects, starting off with a video commissioned by the WKU Office of Admissions and another project that took several of our staff to England for a look at Harlaxton College and the opprotunities for WKU students there. Also in queue are several projects we have collaborated on for clients outside of the university and even an overview of a few cutting edge production tools we employ in our studio and field productions.

Thanks again for stopping in, we hope you enjoy your time spent here and feel free to leave a comment or share a post with your friends should you find something of interest.

- The Production Staff of WKU ETV

Location:Bowling Green,United States