SAN JOSE, CA — Students within Cogswell College’s MediaWorks program were recently retained by the Silicon Valley research group of one of America’s largest corporations, Corning, to develop and produce an original short video describing the operations and opportunities to work with the Corning West Technology Center (CWTC.)
The completed MediaWorks produced video serves as an introduction of the CWTC to prospective employees and to other Corning departments alike. MediaWorks students were responsible for developing the concept and structure for the project, as well as producing the animation, live footage interviews, all California B-roll footage, original music, voiceover production, sound design and audio post production.
To produce the video piece, Jim Renfro, Senior Project and Business Development Manager with Corning, interacted with a team of Cogswell students and came away impressed by the experience. “There were 25-30 students in the room for the first meeting,” he said. “They asked questions about our business. Everyone contributed. What really made a first impression was the research the students had performed on short notice prior to the meeting. They came armed with ideas about Corning rather than waiting for direction.”
Once the Corning project was assigned to MediaWorks, an iterative process was set in motion by which Cogswell students teased out the major themes to be touched on and the flavor of the presentation, as well as the technical elements required of such a production. “I had expected to see a flashy video that showed off what the kids could do. What we got was something far more compelling,” adds Renfro. “Internally, it helps articulate what we offer to our 30,000 employees and to our management in New York.”
Legal issues and brand sensitivity were of particular interest for a publicly traded representative in the Fortune 500 list of large companies. Renfro and the students interacted with Corning’s media managers in New York to obtain the approvals required for all external communications.
Julius Dobos, Distinguished Lecturer, Co-Founder and Audio Director of Cogwell College’s MediaWorks program, said, “Since the launch of MediaWorks last year, we’ve worked primarily with startups and not-for-profit organizations –entities that do not have as much scrutiny applied to them. But working with Corning helped both our students and the managers of Corning West Tech Center to better appreciate the full media pipeline, including the navigation of narrow straights between the legal and creative aspects. Besides some unique production challenges, our students also experienced first hand what it is like to work with a major corporate client."
Renfro also notes that non-media managers can benefit from learning more about how the media process works, and that Corning having worked with Cogswell offered a rare opportunity for his technology group to do so. “Visitors to our Center see the video produced by Cogswell students cycled on a large display when they enter our facility,” he adds. “They get a sense of our people and what we do.”