MADERA – The senior classes of both Madera High School and Madera South High School will have graduation after all. It might look a little different than in the past and if definitely will cost a little more than in the past. The Madera Unified Board of Trustees approved a contract between the district and Windsong Productions to develop a “high-quality keepsake video honoring the students of the graduating class of 2020” for $140,000. That price does not include stage rentals, decoration, or staffing.
Superintendent Todd Lile said to board members Tuesday, “Graduation is a major accomplishment and unfortunately, because of this unprecedented time, 2020 graduates are losing something that is fundamental to their educational experience. A live graduation also contains a specific meaning to students. Its format is what students are most familiar with. It means marking a moment with friends, family, and teachers who all have had an impact on who they are today and doing it all together, in one place. Graduation-on-video will be a much different experience and by the nature of “safer-at-home”, it will be a much more singular and passive experience.”
The videos will be filmed at Madera High School’s Memorial Stadium over five days. According to Mr. Lile, students will enter the stadium in groups of ten or approximately fifty students per hour. Lile added, “The video will be edited into a film to be streamed to the whole community so families can celebrate at home on graduation night.”
Each school will have two videos. Video A will have all the specific parts of graduation except the student’s procession. VIDEO A will only contain what Windsong is calling a ‘sizzle cut’ of seniors walking across the stage for their diploma, but not every student. VIDEO B will contain a video of all the students walking, uncut. Windsong says, “In our vision, when presented, VIDEO A would play first. It would essentially be the complete graduation and the video that students would hopefully hold as a keepsake and maybe watch at their future reunions. Then you would play VIDEO B.”
According to Windsongs’s presentation to the board, “The reason we are separating out VIDEO B is we are not convinced anyone will want to sit and watch all the students walk across the stage. This video has the potential to be roughly an hour alone. Most will probably watch some and then jump to themselves, and then to specific people they would like to see.”
But in normal live graduations, all parents would sit for the calling out of every student’s name. The school district did not say which students would be included in, or make the final cut, to the “VIDEO A” and which students would be cut out for time only to be seen in the uncut “VIDEO B”.
For the speeches on the stage, Windsong says they do not want to just film them on the stage, as they feel that would not be interesting. But they want to cut in music and video footage from throughout the year from raw materials provided by the school from the yearbook or video departments. “We would then take this material and cut it all together to make segments that are synergistic with all the students talking”, Windsong added.
Windsong’s estimate to the district was for over 900 video production hours billed to the district at rates from $95 an hour to $175 an hour. The estimate includes 315 hours of video editing at $150 an hour for a total of $47,250.00, a director of photography for 80 hours at $175 per hour for a total of $14,000, an executive creative director for 80 hours at $125 an hour for a total of $10,000, and of course $1,152 in Craft Services to keep everyone fed.
Something that might bother some parents of these high school students, the school district has granted to Windsong a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use students' images in this project in Windsong's future advertising and promotional literature, whether print-, web-, or video-based. So does this mean Windsong can use the student’s image from the MHS or MSHS class of 2020 forever? Despite being advised of the date and time that BVN would go to press with this story, Windsong did not return our call.
This was the only bid presented to the trustees. It wasn’t put out to bid? Other questions that have not been answered by the district are what days will this graduation take place on, will parents be offered a chance to purchase a copy of the graduation or will it be provided to them, if provided what form will it take (DVD, digital file, online only), will the band and choir participate or will the district use recordings? How will those seniors be honored? For example, Seniors who have been active in band are usually offered the chance to ‘conduct’ the band as part of the ceremonies. How will the band seniors conduct the band if the only performance is by Memorex?
One thing for sure is this graduation will be like no other in history. Will everyone be happy with the final product, which students will be cut out of the MAIN video and is $140k too much for a video memory? Tune-in to Social Media early next month to see the answers……
While all parties involved are honestly trying to come up with something that will adequately commemorate these student’s greatest accomplishment to date, BVN would like to go on record as saying “Sorry Class of 2020, you deserved more…..”
