By Gerri Miller
EAN Staff Writer
Wetumpka High School (WHS) won first place statewide in the Alabama Association of School Board’s 2020 Student Video Production competition and Kyle Goodin couldn’t be prouder.
“I was sitting here in class and my jaw dropped to the floor when I read the email that we had won,” said Goodin, teacher of WHS’s video production classes.
“Over the summer we had collaborated with a few of our aspiring videographers,” Goodin said. “There were a lot of people from our class and a few others from Elmore County. We created a special video for all of Elmore County Schools.”
Goodin said the group did such a good job on the video that School Superintendent Richard Dennis suggested they enter the Association of School Board competition.
The class would have two weeks to create a new video with the theme “Road to Success.” They started their pre-production phase by brainstorming ideas.
“This was completely a student-led project,” Goodin said. “We wanted them to come up with ideas. They asked a lot of questions.”
Although the class had no budget for the video, Goodin said he was fortunate to own a lot of equipment that the class could use. “I used to shoot weddings,” he said. “I have a lot of equipment for that.”
Students Taylor Gunn and Sarah Stauch were the video directors. Gunn filmed many of the shots, edited the video and put the extras in place. He said it took him about two days to write a script.
Goodin’s class has about 13 students and he said each one played some role in the video’s production.
This is the first time the class has entered any competition. The class produces a news program for the school. “When it comes to news, I try to show examples of what school news should look like,” Goodin said. “We have good cameras and industry-standard editing software.”
Goodin said the video doesn’t have a lot of flashy effects, but gets the job done effectively.
“If you look at the video,” it’s plain, but it’s effective,” Goodin said. “Taylor had a very clear vision. He wrote on the board exactly what it should look like.” The white board in Goodin’s classroom is filled with the students’ ideas.
“When I saw him sketching the video out, I knew we would be okay,” Goodin said.
Goodin said the script called for an older sister and he found a theatre student, Searcy Herring, who played the part. A younger sister is played by Kyndall Bonet, who is in the video class.
He said he has complete confidence in his students. “You can show them what you want something to look like and they are completely capable of doing it,” he said.
The winning video can be found on the Alabama Association of School Boards Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AlabamaSchoolBoards
