With the demand for on-line video content exploding in recent years, the Lehigh Athletics department was determined to remain a leader in quality, self-produced content. With limited financial resources available to hire a production team and re-wire on-campus venues to cover the more than 100 live video broadcast events on the schedule – and simultaneously produce over 300 videos during the school year, the department turned inwards to solve the dilemma. Lehigh Athletics looked to perhaps its most abundant resource: hard-working students.
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Nearly two years ago, the Lehigh Athletics Multimedia office – consisting of a staff of two – worked with the Journalism Department on-campus to find a creative solution. The answer turned out to be the Journalism 232: Special Topics practicum. This course allowed the students to earn course credit while gaining valuable real-world experience in all facets of video production.
“Dr. [Jack] Lule and the Journalism Department have been wonderful to work with throughout our ambitious endeavor,” explained Jeff Tourial, Lehigh’s Director of Broadcast & Multimedia. “It really has been a winning scenario for everyone involved. The students gain a ton of experience and learn everything that goes into producing and editing a video for our web site, not to mention live production and all that entails. Our fans get access to student-athletes that they’ve never had before – including practices, feature stories, and even sometimes coaches’ pre-game locker room speeches! And for us, well, we get eager students that want to learn and help us be more places at once.”
In all, 17 Lehigh students – including several Lehigh student-athletes – participated in either J232, a traditional four-credit academic internship, or volunteered their time to learn the ropes during the 2009-10 school year. “In today's job market, more than ever, students need hands-on experience before they leave school,” noted Dr. Jack Lule, the Joseph B. McFadden Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Lehigh. “Everyone they compete against will have a college education. Experience is what will set students apart. Lehigh students are incredibly fortunate to have the experiences offered by the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. They get a tremendous variety of experiences. They get large responsibilities and duties. They get hands-on work with cutting edge technology. The students have loved it -- and have thrived.” Through the practicum, students are immersed in all elements of video production, including setting up interviews, filming at practices and games, interviewing, and, of course, editing. Much of the work is produced in the Multimedia office using Adobe Creative Suite, but students also take advantage of the state-of-the-art Digital Media Studio on Lehigh’s campus to edit as well. There, students learn to work on the MacIntosh platform with Final Cut.
Monthly meetings take place throughout the semester to divvy up the assignments for upcoming games: game previews, videographers, commentators, directors, hosts, reporters, and editors. Students are paired off to coordinate covering practices, gather B-roll, and shoot events that weren’t being produced for live broadcast. Organizing who works what events can be hectic at times, but students keep in touch regarding schedule changes and other class assignments as needed.
Katie Matis, Lehigh’s Multimedia Coordinator, oversees the scheduling efforts and teaches the students the ins-and-outs of editing and in-game production.
“Working with each of the students has been a thrill,” Matis said. “Each day they bring more ideas to make
Lehighsports.com and Lehigh Athletics better. It’s fun and exhilarating to see how excited they become when they create something, whether it is directing or filming a live broadcast, hosting a preview and interviewing their peers, or editing the work they’ve just shot. The fact that many of them have previously never touched a camera or an editing suite is part of the great experience."
"When the feeling of genius overcomes them after going out together to film a preview video – conducting the interviews, getting in the dirt to shoot practice, and then coming back to the office to edit it and create exactly what they had in mind – that is when the world was in their hands and they realized that they can do anything,” Matis concluded.
The students have been given a large amount of responsibility, and they have flourished. “I think I was most surprised by how must trust is given to the students right off of the bat,” said Mike Lederer ’10, a two-semester veteran. “I learned that I absolutely love covering athletics. Lehighsports.com gave us a huge variety of different sports to cover and while I knew some sports better than others, each sport had to be presented with the same detail and expertise as the last. At times it can be hard and take up a lot of time, but you learn very quickly whether you enjoy doing it.”
Finally, on April 17, the Lehigh group was put to the ultimate test: the crew put together an entire web broadcast from start to finish, with no supervisor on-site. The event was Lehigh women’s lacrosse against Navy, in a preview of what would ultimately be the Patriot League Championship game. In all, seven students worked on this particular broadcast – including one staffer who was assigned to document the production from start to finish.
Kristen Dalton ’10, a member of Lehigh’s two-time defending conference champion basketball team, was the director of the lacrosse broadcast. She was charged with complete oversight of all aspects of the broadcast, from set up, to the game itself, to post-production.
“No one ever likes making mistakes, but I made a lot of them and the most comforting thing was being okay with that in the sense that, I had to fix things, make them better, improve upon them and move forward,” Dalton said after evaluating a successful production. “There was no time to sit and dwell. Very much like basketball, you just forget about it and move on. But you become better in the process.”
The result was a complete success. Over 230 people tuned in to the live game broadcast on Lehighsports.com, and well over 100 more watched the edited post-game show with interviews following the game.
“The team atmosphere amongst [the students] is what makes this work so well,” Matis explained. “They may or may not know each other in the beginning, but they’ve come to know each other so well through this process of not only working with each other, but being put in positions where they inspire each other with creativeness and have a blast while doing so. “
Tourial is looking forward to the fall semester. “We’ve got a lot of really talented students coming back to work with us in the fall, and we always look forward to welcoming fresh faces,” he said. “And with a new Lehighsports.com experience on its way, our fans will have access like they’ve never experienced before.”
What they’re saying about working in the Lehigh Athletics Multimedia Office
“My favorite part of the internship was the people. It's cliché to say that it's all about the relationships you have with the people you work with, but it's true. I've learned far more just from watching, observing and interacting those people than I have about editing or the technical aspects of camera equipment or writing. Those are things you are taught. But the things that you learn are the face-to-face interactions and how to handle yourself in certain crunch-time situations. And you learn those things by watching the experts, who then eventually throw you out there too.”
-Kristen Dalton ’10 (three semesters worked) “I enjoyed everything about this internship. It allowed me to take on a role in broadcast I never thought I could do. It helped me to hone my skills as an independent worker but also to work together in a group to get the broadcast done."
-Kaitlin Dean ’10 (two semesters worked) "Among many other things, I was most surprised about the responsibility we were given in the internship, especially from the beginning, which helped create a challenging, yet rewarding, working environment."
-Chip Kasprzak ’10 (two semesters worked) “I had three main things that I absolutely loved about working for Lehighsports.com. First, I loved having the opportunity to improve my broadcasting skills through a variety of different sports. Whether it was a preview, post-game extra report, or an in-game broadcast, the opportunities to challenge myself and try different things have allowed me to develop into a much better communicator than I was at the start of the school year.
Secondly, I look back at all of the amazing memories I have from the past year. Whether it was doing one-on-one interviews with student-athletes for ‘In the Spotlight,’ broadcasting women's basketball games courtside as they went onto win their second straight Patriot League Championship, or having the opportunity to broadcast from the press box at Citizens Bank Park down in Philadelphia, there are so many things that I will look back on with fond memories as I conclude my Lehigh experience. Lastly, my favorite part of the course was the relationships I was able to develop throughout the year. I met two of my best friends at Lehigh through this opportunity and the memories we have from the past year are things we’ll be able to talk about for the rest of our lives.”
-Mike Lederer ’10 (two semesters worked) “Working with
Lehighsports.com has given me valuable experience in all areas of sports broadcasting – from reporting, to writing, producing stories, shooting footage, editing packages, practical real world experiences and problem solving. Everything I have learned during my time with Lehighsports.com I believe has prepared me for my future career in sports broadcasting!”
-Courtney Molinaro ’09 (three semesters worked)