For this project, two other team members and I collaborated for a 30 second and a 1 minute commercial that promoted the “Healthy Cleaning Crew” branch of The Arc of St. Charles. First we researched what that branch was responsible for, which was a lot more than we expected! Then we went to the headquarters and interviewed one of the supervisors. After we’d gathered all the information we needed, we bounced ideas off of one another and came up with the MASTER PLAN!

We wrote our ideas out on an A/V (audio and video) script and began working in Premiere Pro. This is where things started to get “crazy.” As we were being creative and giving the the commercial our own style, we were STRIPPED of our creativity because there were guidelines we had to meet. For example, in our video the workers had to be labeled “Healthy Cleaning Crew Member” instead of their actual name. Needless to say, I thought that was a silly rule. However I was still grateful that we got to keep the interview of the people in the commercial. The biggest lesson I learned is that my job is to please the consumer and NOT my individual preferences (even if I’m totally right).

I really enjoyed my group because we were able to clown and get work done which is ALWAYS a plus! We worked well together because we are friends outside of the group collaboration so if someone didn’t agree with an idea, that person voiced their opinion and we moved on. I think I carried my own weight and made my team look good with the quality work I produced.

When we first started this project, I promised the ladies who came in to meet us that the video would be awesome! With that in mind, I believe my group stayed true to that, and we put our best foot forward. Personally, I think my group’s videos outshine the rest because of our content and the way we get to the point in both of our commercials without having to go over our limit. However we wouldn’t have been able to do this without the feedback that everyone absolutely dreaded, but appreciated, and did better because of it.

If I could do it all over again I’d change how I interview my talents, because open ended questions were NOT the way to go! Also as you plan for projects you should put the people who work as a team together just as you did in this project, because its not always how well you work alone, it’s how you work as a team! If I could shine a light on anything about this project to the students next year, I’d tell them “It’s not about you, it’s about the consumer. The more you’re concerned about how you feel the commercial should look, the more your pockets will starve.”