May 2020 will be known in The Film Guys Rolodex as the first time doing a virtual graduation from eight thousand miles away across three different timezones. Though what seemed like a chaotic scene around us, internally at least, felt like a day at the office. We specialise in creating things we’ve never done before, using methods, ideas, techniques and strategies we haven’t employed before, so facing the spectre of “unprecedented circumstances” is nothing new. This is how we keep it fresh, and stay on our toes. When everybody was panicking about what this year’s virtual graduation needed to be, we were working on our production principles, or our thesis. The words that stay at the front of our minds when making any decision regarding the production. For this project, our word was “closure”.
The only thing we cared about was somehow offering a sense of closure, so we designed the energy of the event early on. Like a symphony, it would rise and fall, there would be humour, and there would be tears and then in the end, a giant swell of emotion as we roll into the credits. Once all would be said and done, the hope was that 149 graduating seniors would feel whole, and would feel ready to step into the world knowing that their school did all it could for them.
We created a “virtual audience” to make sure we could still experience the sensation of applause.
We knew off the bat that there would be no way we could replace a real graduation. It is simply impossible to replicate the effervescence of the moment, with a couple thousand people in a shared space on a beautiful afternoon sending off a group of kids into the world. There was no use trying to be like that, besides, we’re making a video here so we ought to be focusing on how we can leverage the medium to its best effect.
With a video, we can measure the pacing, choose the music, curate the entire experience to a form of rhythmic perfection that can not be achieved in real life. Real life graduations are typically fairly boring events (let’s be honest). Lots of down time, waiting, mindless and endless clapping. We now had the opportunity to have kids experience their graduations sitting shoulder to shoulder with their parents, laughing, joking, hugging and crying together as the moment unfolds. There’s a silver lining to everything.
So in early May, Suhayb and I, both King’s Academy graduates from the class of 2011, got to work on the graduation. Me, in Port Douglas, Australia, Suhayb in Washington D.C. and the project itself, in Amman Jordan. We had twenty-three days to make magic so we had to be organised. We developed an excel spreadsheet to manage the project as a whole, spent more time than we needed writing a formula (we’re not good at excel) that would tell you how many days were left leading to whatever deadline we had.
Our excel home base, the real MVP of this entire production
We enlisted the senior class to send us videos of them clapping. We asked the faculty to record fifteen-second messages to the class. We reached out to previous commencement orators among ten generations of alumni to offer their words of wisdom. We enlisted students to write a speech for a faculty member to read for the first time on camera and the same vice versa. We asked a couple of seniors to submit musical performances which would serve as interludes. We selected two commencement orators to deliver four minute speeches set to a piece of music of their choosing (from the options we gave them). For each of the 149 seniors, we created a beautiful slide that showed their ID photos from freshman through senior years cascading upwards to a beautiful black and white image of them. We spent an average of ten minutes on each slide (so that took quite some time). To top off the whole ensemble, we got Omer Khalayleh, known in the industry as Omer the Admissions Guy (or OTAG, as we call him) to be the MC of the event.
We wrote Omer’s lines to be beautiful, poetic but not contrived. We edited all the speeches and then cut together all the pieces we received into one total event. We created custom transitions and moving backgrounds to give the event a sense of visual ceremony. We filmed Omer from a distance, extremely successfully. Omer connected his brother’s DSLR camera to a laptop in Jordan. With the camera locked onto a tripod, I would then take access of his computer, from Australia, and by extension, access to the camera. I was adjusting camera settings and calling “Action!” from a distance.
Between takes, you can vaguely hear a tinny voice coming out of a smartphone directing Omer to be “more jovial” or “a touch less authoritative. There are also some great outtakes of Omer struggling with the word “epitomises” (I’ll attach them here, why not?)
From a production perspective, this project was beyond extraordinary. Having to coordinate so many people, describe to them how to film, how to get good sound and how to send it to us all the while not personally knowing any of the senior class and doing it between three totally different time zones was, as the cliche has now gone, an “unprecedented circumstance”.
We settled early on that the event would play live. We knew that it couldn’t just be a kid at their computer in their room, there had to be some ceremony about it. So we had all the gowns sent out to the students which they were told to wear and get on a group zoom call so they could all see each other during. Next, we instructed families to connect their laptops to a television or to open the YouTube link directly from their smart TVs. This was going to feel like a real televised event.
Leading up the event the anticipation was mounting. When the video streamed, there was a tremendous buzz around the community. You could practically hear the messages pinging around. Right after the event the community got together on one big zoom call which was then divided into breakout groups and somehow, it felt like a graduation. Tears were flowing, excitement and energy was everywhere.
A couple days later, we start receiving messages like these:
“I simply wanted to share how much I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s “virtual graduation”, and I have no doubt that I speak for everyone else, as well. Hats off to all of you for truly making the most of an otherwise challenging situation, pulling it off with masterful aplomb! We celebrated and experienced closure.”
“Thank you for making this grad so amazing and so memorable in spite of the circumstances. In the eyes of our class, you guys are absolute superheroes. Thank you!!”
This is what we do it for ladies and gentlemen. Against the odds, we managed to send off 149 young people into the world with that feeling in their stomach that they graduated from high school.
I may be romanticizing the process a little, but it was a truly meaningful conclusion. However, I don’t know if I’d do it again.
