The final Year 12 Graduation Assembly congratulates the achievements of the Year 12’s in completing their 6th and final year of studying. A definite highlight of the assembly is the Year 12 Graduation Video that commemorates the entire cohort’s journey throughout their high school life. This is the last chance for the Year 12’s to a visual memento of their legacy, so there is a bit of pressure that follows for the Year 12’s in charge of making it a memorable and endearing short film.
If you’re struggling for ideas for your final graduation video or are seeking some advice on how to make it a truly unforgettable video, then this blog post is for you! As I graduated Year 12 in 2014 and was responsible for helping to produce my Year 12’s final graduation video, I can confidently say that these tips I’m about to share with you are definitely helpful.
TIP #1. Gather a team of Year 12 volunteers who want to help with filming, editing, producing and directing the Video.
– The more volunteers the merrier, because it’ll save you a lot of time having to scramble for last minute volunteers if not enough people signed up. Remember you’re on a deadline to finish filming the video, so the more volunteers you have the more efficient you’ll be in producing the film on schedule.
TIP #2. Organise a team meeting to brainstorm ideas and make a plan.
– Gather your team of volunteers and brainstorm different ideas that you want to include in the video. Skits are the most common types of segments that are included into Graduation videos. A skit can include “A Day in the Life of a Year 12 student” and integrate funny inside jokes exclusively relevant to Year 12 students. For example, in my graduation video we made a skit on Year 12’s being late to school, and the inside joke was whenever Year 12 students were late we had to sign in at the student office, our excuse was always “I had an appointment” (even if we really were late because we slept in).
TIP #3. Gather volunteers for skits.
– Depending on the skit idea itself, the amount of people you need can vary. The Year 12’s being late skit as described in Tip #2 took around 20+ Year 12 volunteers . An efficient way in gathering Year 12 volunteers is to create and print out a Sign Up Sheet Sheet for Year 12’s to sign their names if they choose to volunteer for a certain skit segment. The amount of skits you wish to include is up to you, which is why brainstorming skit ideas at the very beginning is so important so you can ask Year 12’s to sign up to skits that they wish to participate in (as you can tell the Year 12’s being late skit was a very popular choice).
TIP #4. Organise your filming schedule.
– You’ll need to organise separate times to film certain segments of the video – especially if you’re filming a lot of skits. For example, when I was helping to film my graduation video, we had to organise for Year 12’s who volunteered to stay back after school so we could get filming out of the way with minimal interference from the rest of the students as classes have finished for the day. It is also important that you can include filming schedule time, day and location on the Sign Up Sheet so volunteers know when they are due to film.
TIP #5. Give yourself a time limit for the video.
– You may need to speak with your Year 12 Coordinator, because you may only be given a 15 minute slot through the final graduation assembly to showcase your video. It’s important that during your brainstorming period, you give yourself an estimated time length for each segment, and after filming make sure you can edit and cut each video to fit the designated time length you gave.
TIP #6. Make it relevant.
– It’s important to include inside jokes, popular songs and funny situations that are relevant to not only the Year 12’s, but to teachers and other students. The final video will then have everyone reeling in laughter, so aim to make all your skits funny and relatable so everyone can enjoy watching it.
TIP #7. Add music.
– It’s important to add background music for different segments of the video that require it. You want to make the video as funny and as creative as possible, so whether it’s background music when you’re showcasing some throwback pictures, or music part of a skit, make sure you don’t forget the difference it makes in the final product!
TIP #8. Use a good quality camera.
– A good quality DSLR like Canon or Nikon would be fantastic, and even if you don’t have one ask around the cohort for someone who does, or borrow one from the school. I was lucky to use my own Nikon DSLR, and we also borrowed a Canon DSLR from the Media Lab.
TIP #9. Use a good quality editing software.
– Now I myself don’t have a lot of experience editing films and videos with software. The best I’ve used is the internal iMovie included on my Macbook. Luckily my best friend (who was the director of the video), was doing Year 12 Media at that time and she had extensive experience in using Final Cut Pro. This was a life saver, and without it, we wouldn’t have been able to produce our final Year 12 Graduation Video at the quality we did. So my advice is to seek any media student who can volunteer their editing skills to create the final video into the masterpiece it has the potential to be.
TIP #10. Gather Year 12 throwback photos for a slideshow.
– Get the entire Year 12 cohort to share their at least 2-3 of their best pictures from their Year 7 – Year 12 high school life. This can be shown at the end of the slide show. An easy way to gather all the photos is to get the Year 12’s to upload them to the Shared Drive on the School Network, this process makes it so much more easier to upload and for you to access to add to the video.
TIP #11. Include goodbye and farewell messages from the teachers.
– Get the teachers to record a goodbye message for the Year 12 students – wishing them luck for the future! You can film teachers individually, or more efficiently as a group in their respective departments (eg. Drama, Science, Health, P.E, Religion, Maths and English teachers) – usually the teachers may drop in some inside jokes related to their department! Which makes it great and relatable.
TIP #12. Upload it on Youtube or Facebook.
– Every Year 12 student will want to keep their own copy or have access to watching it how many times over to show their close friends and family. Youtube is a great platform to share your final Graduation Video with the rest of the Year 12 cohort, or if you’re friends on Facebook with the entire Year 12 cohort then Facebook is also a great way to share it.
I hope these tips help you to create the best Year 12 Graduation Video for your cohort! Here’s a link to my Year 12 Graduation Video for 2014 – hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed filming it!
