Virtual Graduation | Promotion Ceremonies/Celebrations
We are facing challenging times. The school year for the graduating/promoting Class of 2020 has been cut short - classes, sports, practices, all clubs, and just simply seeing best friends everyday have come to a halt. Many of us are forced to pivot and come up with new solutions, and we think virtual ceremonies are the solution to providing a well-deserved and meaningful graduation/promotion day, while everyone safely stays home to celebrate.
What does it look like?
We'll work with you to determine what the best way to celebrate looks like for your particular institution/student. While this is still new territory for everyone, we think the best way to proceed is to pre-produce all the content, assemble all the edited pieces, and stream the graduation LIVE on YouTube (or your preferred platform) at a time and date that you select.
Everything can be done virtually, or we can set up a time to professionally film the ceremony content. Speeches, commencements and any performances can be filmed on-location at your school week or days leading up to graduation. We can film these individually while maintaining social distancing with our professional cameras, microphones and lighting. To exercise best social distancing practices, we would only need to bring 1 or 2 school staff members or students in at a time to record their segments.
If you feel concerned about producing these segments in person that's not a problem. We can provide a Dropbox folder where students and faculty can upload self-taped speeches and performances for us to edit.
Suggested Format:
Class Slideshow
We begin the ceremony with a slideshow using photos submitted by the Yearbook Committee and students and staff. Students and faculty can also upload video/voice messages celebrating each other to share with other students.
Commencement
After the slideshow, we move on to the speeches and any performances that we either filmed on location or that were submitted online. We can even reach out to local public figures/elected officials to provide a special message to the graduating class. Preparing a virtual ceremony in some ways allows for more freedom to include individuals that may otherwise have not been able to participate. Are there any honor students or special achievements that need to be recognized? How about clubs or other school organization or special volunteers? The sky's the limit!
Ceremony
For each student we can show pre-produced name graphics, and/or the student's graduation photo, or a 4-5 second video of them while their name is being announced.
Closing
After the ceremony, we can wrap it up with pre-recorded closing remarks. These can be from faculty and staff. We can also have the students provide videos saying goodbye to their classmates or announcing what they have planned in the coming year(s).
Virtual Celebration
After the graduation ceremony concludes, we can finish out the livestream with the slideshow again. We can even produce a separate slideshow for the conclusion.
Media/Assets
Organization is key here and we'd need your help in gathering the videos/photos and any other media needed to produce the ceremony. We can set up a google drive or dropbox folder and invite collaborators to submit media. Many of these details will have to be sorted out once we get started.
Questions/Comments?
These are truly unprecedented times. Do you have ideas that I haven't though of, or something that you think would work well? Please send me an email below! My goal is to produce something that honors these students and helps to preserve their memories and I'm open to any suggestions you may have as to how to achieve this! I look forward to hearing from you!