Poetic Branding
University recruitment videos tend to follow a similar formula—but Leeds Beckett University had other ideas. In 2022, the institution took a different, cinematic approach to capture arts students and alumni performing original pieces in a newly opened arts facility on the U.K. university’s campus.
This entirely in-house production used seamless transitions and drone shots inspired by the 2014 film Birdman, in which the cinematography is styled to achieve the appearance of one continuous shot, explains Head of Creative Dee Grismond, the director of the film.
“You feel like you’re on a journey with all these students through the building, seeing it through their eyes and what makes it special for them,” says Grismond.
The video was designed to build the Leeds School of Arts’ brand and promote the school to compete with other arts schools and specialist institutions.
“If you study at a university that’s got an art school within it [like Leeds Beckett], you’ve got so many opportunities to work across a broad range of subject areas, where if you go to a specialty university, you might not have the breadth to work collaboratively with students across different subject areas,” says Sarah Stone, Head of University Marketing Services.
ADVANCE WORK:
This breadth-of-opportunity theme was captured in the video through the pairing of musicians and dancers, acting and film students, and others.
Created in the final days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the video also needed to connect with prospective students who had recently experienced the isolation of the pandemic.
To accomplish this, the video is anchored through the solo performance of graduate and poet Zodwa Nyoni, whose words can be heard in voice-over for the film’s entirety. She says, “I bend back book spines to let new thoughts illuminate like lighthouses journeying me back home.” Her poem resonated with audiences by imparting the hopeful message that the arts prevail at the darkest of times, says Grismond.
The film successfully helped increase the number of applications to LSA the following year—and short-form videos captured on the day of filming and then posted to social channels also received considerable engagement, says Stone.
“[This film] subtly shows the facilities and showcases the students, so it does feel like a performance that can stand on its own. And yet you get to the end, and [realize] it’s been created [to promote] the university. I think that subtlety is important to [prospective] students. Sometimes they just want to see something really beautiful and go, ‘I want to be at the place to created that,’” says Grismond.
About the author(s)
Hannah Ratzer is Editorial Specialist at CASE.
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Article appears in:
May-June 2024 Issue of Currents
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