Hussman School debuts student-produced Start Here / Never Stop brand video

Associate Professor Terence Oliver's motion graphics course is more than mouse clicks and sleepless nights for his students. It's an immersive experience that pairs clients with student teams who take an agency-style approach to goal-oriented and project-based challenges.

The course focuses on the visual storytelling techniques of combining words, photos, graphics, video, motion, sound and voice-over narratives to tell stories that inform and entertain in a fresh, dynamic and clear manner.

In Spring 2016, Oliver’s students — Carolyn Bahar '16, Charlotte Moore '16 and Jiabing Song '17 — produced the assets and final video for a UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Start Here / Never Stop brand video. Broadcast students Ben Smart '16, Erin Wygant '17, Laura Fellwock '16, Louis Fernandez '16, Caleb Waters '17 and Sharon Nunn '17 contributed tracks for the video's voice-over narrative.

The motion graphic video is the latest in a series of student work the Hussman School has tapped in defining, developing and better telling the school’s own story around its recent name change and rebranding efforts.

Watch the video here:

Market research, industry trends and feedback from students, faculty, alumni and professionals made it clear that communicating the work of the school and the value of its degree required a re-education effort in addition to the name change.

In Spring 2014, Knight Chair in Digital Advertising and Marketing JoAnn Sciarrino charged her class with a semester-long project, underpinned by extensive research, that yielded the school’s central value to be that we “ignite the public conversation.” Her students found the pillars supporting that central value to be storytelling, critical thinking and data analytics.

The following semester, adjunct faculty member Gary Kayye’s New Media Campaigns class picked up Sciarrino’s class findings and developed a rebranding campaign for the school, including the Start Here / Never Stop tagline. The tagline captures the idea that what students experience at the school prepares them to be adaptive to change and enjoy successful careers with multiple transitions — a fact of life for media and journalism professionals in today’s world.