Cinematic Video and photo Production for Schools
At Copper Hound Pictures we have been producing video and photo content for independent schools for over a decade, and through the years we have learned that no two schools have the same personality.
We specialize in communicating exactly what makes your school stand out from a wide range of competitive schools in the northeast.
Want to see this in action for a particular school?
This page highlights some of the videos we’ve created for Brimmer and May. Our relationship with Brimmer started during COVID, as we helped them reimagine graduation in 2020. And in each of the years since, we’ve been on campus filming their amazing school and adding to a growing library of video assets.
If we can help you and your school showcase what makes you unique, please reach out. We’d love to have a conversation.
“From the moment Copper Hound arrived on campus, we knew we were in good hands.”
Sue Cuyler, Brimmer and May School
The Overview
The Overview video is the most common first request we get from schools. We are often tasked with building a 3-5 minute video that can walk a prospective family through the broad strokes of a school. This will often feature interviews with a variety of faculty, administrators, students, and parents. Viewers should walk away from this type of video with not only a solid understanding of the school, but also of the school’s personality. This Brimmer example provides an Overview focus on their Upper School division.
“They have become trusted members of our community.”
The Subject Specific Video
This is generally the next level down for a school that has the Overview Video sorted. This type of video content highlights a particular part of school life, Athletics, for example (as shown here). Other topics we have covered in the past for our clients include, Arts, Dorm Life, Academics, College Counseling, Maker Spaces, or STEM. Each school will choose a variety of these topics for us to produce all at once, or highlight an emerging program at their school.
focus on DEI
These powerful narratives explore a school’s commitment to embracing diverse perspectives, creating an equitable learning environment, and fostering an inclusive community where every voice is heard and valued.
The congrats Video
Nervous prospective students and their families await the school’s decision. A celebratory video congratulating them on getting in to their school of choice is a welcomed first message from their future alma mater. These videos are fun, uplifting, and memorable.
The holiday message
Oftentimes a compilation of happy, smiling b-roll, the Holiday edit is an easy by-product of days on campus, and a fun link to send out to a school’s community.
The event Video
Opportunities to support an institution’s special event is made possible through the acquisition of uplifting, heartfelt, and motivating b-roll while we are filming on campus. After each shoot day, we organize the ‘best of’ clips to use in edits like these. The Event messaging can be delivered via talking heads, or in the case here, a bit of text.
“Their commitment to showcasing what makes our school special and their gorgeous, finished product are the reasons we make sure we partner with Copper Hound on new video projects each year!”
The b-roll loop
The b-roll loop compilation is a great way to showcase the personality of a school on a home page, or on several pages through a site. These images provide a glimpse into the life of a school… and important first impression for those exploring a new school.
Make it stand out.
What makes Copper Hound Pictures different?
OUR APPROACH
We believe we take a fundamentally different approach to video production for schools than a lot of production companies that include school work as one of many different types of videos they create. We specialize in video and photo production for independent schools and universities, so we approach each engagement as the start of a long term relationship with a school. We consider each project as piece of the building of a library of assets for our clients.
FIRST TIME ON CAMPUS
Let’s take a typical first time video engagement as an example. We come to campus with our team for three to five consecutive days of filming. Each day consists of an interview portion and a b-roll gathering portion. Let says at the end of the week we have 15 to 25 interviews and three to five partial days of different moments captured across academics, arts, athletics, dining, advisory, all school meetings, extra curricular activities, and campus life.
BACK IN OUR STUDIO
When we return to our studio to edit we not only create the videos that we were engaged to create, for example a four minute overview and three subject specific edits, but we also transcribe and categorize all the content that was captured in the interviews, as well as categorize the b-roll footage that we capture. This content always far outnumbers the usable soundbites and visuals that we can put into the initial scope of edits. From here we have the flexibility to recommend additional topic-specific edits or social media edits that we can pull together for you from the transcripts.
IT ONLY GETS BETTER
The real value comes from multiple engagements. After three or four visits to campus, which is the type of relationship we have with almost all of our clients, we are able to pull from a wide variety of voices and story lines that have all been well documented and organized to build additional stories. We had clients that were able to continue to release videos throughout the duration of the COVID remote learning periods simply because we had built them enough of a library of assets to pull from throughout our previous projects.
We want our clients to think about the project at hand, but also plan for the future together.
Melissa Larocque at Belmont Hill
What Services Does Copper Hound Pictures Provide?
PRE-PRODUCTION
We are happy to take as much work off your plate as you would like, or follow your lead. We have the ability to do all the pre-production work from concepting, to storyboarding, to pre-interviews, to scheduling - but often our clients want to be heavily involved in the pre-production, we take a collaborative approach and are positioned to fill in where needed.
PRODUCTION
On the filming days themselves our team typically leads the interviews, which we approach as conversations that are guided by a list of pre-approved questions, but have the flexibility to organically follow useful or unexpected paths. We come into each day of filming with a very clear understanding of our goals and have the experience to know which tangents will prove useful.
POST-PRODUCTION
In post production we handle all editing, sound, music and color. Typically a few weeks after filming we send a private link with a first edit. These first edits are typically close to 90% on target and only require minor changes to get to the finishing steps. We are also happy to provide graphics work for lower thirds, intros and outros, as well as closed-captioning.
What Equipment Does Copper Hound Pictures Use, and Does it matter?
This is an interesting question, because we believe amazing stories can be told with any equipment, but we have found the combination of truly cinema-quality equipment and great storytelling can elevate educational videos to the next level.
We use all RED Digital Cinema cameras, from the newly released 8k V-Raptor to the incredibly portable Komodo-X. We currently own and operate four REDs.
We also have a FAA licensed drone pilot with the newly released 5.1k DJI Mavic 3 Cine Pro for aerial video and photography. Our cameras are supported by SteadiCam systems as well as a variety of cranes, sliders, and robotic head systems.
If this is interesting to you, that’s great. If it isn’t, just know that we have invested heavily in making sure your final product looks and sounds incredible.
YOU CAN CONTACT US DIRECTLY AT :
What are the first steps?
First, let us say we absolutely love this work and we are excited to talk to you. The best first step is to reach out to us at bob@copperhound.com and we can set up a call to get to know each other. If you’d like we are happy to provide references from several schools. Whatever we can do to make this process smooth for you, we are happy to help.