For schools, the pandemic created many new challenges to overcome. New guidelines and safety measures had to be implemented immediately, and many schools went completely remote for years. After schools started opening up slowly, Pathways felt the schools should have a video playing in the schools with safety tips and guidelines. My role in the creation of this video was the lead video editor. In creating this video, I worked alongside graphic designers, motion designers, and the legal department to create a video to be played on-loop in all of our schools.
Working with the graphic designer, we settled on a look for the video. We went with a look that was upbeat and playful, while using primarily OFY colors (and similar versions of them) because they were the most diverse. The graphic designer created some assets and used some assets from Adobe Stock.
We then worked with the legal department to determine what information needed to be in the video. Ultimately the script took surprisingly little time because the legal department already had all the information they wanted to convey. Most of our job was condensing some of the information for high schoolers.
After this, I worked with the motion designer to determine how to present each block of information. We determined which parts would be a block of text and which parts could use a character animation with a comic bubble. Once we storyboarded the video, we set out to work. The motion designer’s work involved the character animations (the lip and limb movements), while I worked on animating the text, icons, and transitions. When they were done with character animations, I would receive them and add additional animations to text and information. Once I had finished doing so, I edited the video pieces together into the final product.
Ultimately, the video played on loop in multiple centers throughout California during the early stages of schools opening up during the pandemic.