Whether its travel blogs, product reviews, music videos or news commentary, digital content is all around us. Integrating classroom and individual learning into creating original content for online platforms could help in determining a person’s creative direction as well as open up possibilities for alternative incomes.
The growing demand amongst companies or even large traffic websites for creative and original content to catch the attention of online users is allowing novice and saged producers alike to jump into the world of commercial content creation.
According to Myk Pono, the strategic messaging and content strategy consultant for Forbes magazine, “Today, the battle for media attention is brutal. Audiences are exposed to a tremendous amount of content and given an unprecedented number of ways to consume it.”
Andrea Marshall, a special instructor of creative video marketing at BYU–Hawaii and freelance videographer, said her passion for making videos is, “something that has stuck with” her through her life.
Marshall graduated from BYU–Hawaii in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design. As a freelance videographer, Marshall said she creates is videos and short films. When asked how she got started into videography, she said, “I got started when I was in college here at the university.
“I took several classes and I worked for the Ke Alaka’i where I got my knowledge of the equipment I was going to be using. When I graduated, I started filming weddings. It turned out there was a big need for wedding videographers in this area.”
Grace Smith from Virginia, who is married to a current student, said, “I think [content creation] would be something a lot of students here probably already do sometimes.
According to Smith, she loves to watch travel blogging videos and has often given thought to film some herself. She said, “I’ve done some video editing in the past, and although I’m not as good about updating my Instagram, I would like to [create online content].”
Taylor Stoll, a freshman from Florida studying business management, was enthusiastic as he said, “I would (look into it as a career).” He continued, “I’m in business right now, so knowing how to find markets and target them and learning how to create content that’s actually applicable and adds value … is super important.”
Stoll considered taking classes offered on basic video, photo, web production and marketing as he remarked how these classes would be interesting to him, a business major.
Giving her tips for content creation, Marshall said, “One of the first things I would suggest to people who want to start creating content for social media or any platform they use is to do research into what other content creators are doing right now.
“I would go on and see videos of what other people were doing and see what I could do better. The more they know about what’s on the market already, the better equipped they’ll be when creating their own content.”
Addressing what goals she had when beginning her videography business, Marshall said, “My main goal was to create content that stands out. One of the things I did differently was I dove into [Adobe] After Effects. I feel most people can learn how to use [Adobe] Premiere with enough practice, but a lot of people don’t know how to use After Effects.
“If I could stand out using After Effects then I had a foot ahead. I could do something different from other videographers. By doing that, I think it took me out of one category and put me in a new one altogether.
“Over time I’ve just kept innovating and recreating and redoing and changing so I could stay up to date and keep pushing myself to be better.”
Marshall said of her beginnings as a videographer, “I think the thing that helped me the most was my background in graphic design, because I think there are a lot of talented graphic designers out there and a lot of talented videographers, but a lot of them don’t meet in the middle.
“Having a background in both graphic design and video gave me the ability to see shots artistically and also to add titles and effects maybe a videographer wouldn’t have thought of before.
“I would encourage everyone to get one [specialty] you think is really cool and then focus on something else so you can bring them together. That’s how I did it; I did videography and I focused in graphic design and those two together have helped me.
Clarifying how one could combine different interests together beyond video and graphic design, Marshall said, “It could be video and anthropology. Having a strong focus in both, you can create beautiful documentaries.”
Marshall said students can take many steps toward learning content creation at BYUH. “There are a lot of classes at the university you can take. There are also several jobs you can get into as well.”
She continued, “If you’re interested in becoming a photographer or videographer or anything in content creation, there’s a lot of things you can learn online and there are also a lot of things you can learn in the classroom. I would say do a mixture of both.”
Smith, on if students should consider pursuing an unconventional career such as content creation, said, “There are a lot of people who would probably get into it or who would be interested because there’s not just the normal career option that defines you. You can do a lot of different things and maybe a lot of people, like myself, don’t really know what the options are because we haven’t researched it.”
Writer: Shannon Crowley
