During January of my sophomore year, I traded Friday lunches basking in the sun on the Grassy Knoll for camerawork. Almost every week, junior Isa Galá and I traverse the Upper School campus, from the Café to the Knoll to Noyes Courtyard, filming interviews for “The Weekly Slice,” a video series on Eagle Eye News’s Instagram account (@pcdseagleeyenews). 

During Senate-run pizza sales on Fridays, Isa asks students a light-hearted question, sometimes with a guest, while I film –– and later edit –– the video. Previous questions include “Where do you see yourself in 2040?” and “What was the last song you listened to?” Our interviews aim to enrich the PCDS community by uplifting student voices, informing parents and other community members, and bringing students from different grades together.

I stumbled into the producing role almost a year ago, and while my skills have developed considerably, I still have much more to learn. Videography has always interested me; in my freshman year, I often made vlogs of my friends and myself. After capturing informal interviews and miscellaneous clips, I would throw them into CapCut and add funny filters and sound effects, crafting nostalgic keepsakes from my early high school days.

While I still sneak in a filter or sound effect in EEN videos, I am more thoughtful about cutting out and trimming clips, adding background clips (b-roll), and choosing music. In August of this year, I upgraded from CapCut on my phone to Adobe Premiere Pro on my laptop, hoping for a more efficient and systematic editing experience. It’s still quite time-consuming and even frustrating at times. For instance, I took a break after I had been editing a video about the Spirit Week Boat Regatta for a few hours; when I returned, I received a “media offline” message, which meant that all of the clips had been deleted. It took a while, but I eventually relocated the clips that had been unlinked. Despite these inconvenient moments, I’m slowly getting the hang of it, and hopefully one day, “The Weekly Slice” will live up to its name and actually be weekly.

A lot of the production happens spontaneously, when that same morning before lunch, I charge the camera, and Isa and I select a question, often seeking inspiration from our peers. Then, we jump straight into the introduction and interviews.

For long form videos, however, we create a more comprehensive outline, including the intro script, a list of people to interview, questions to ask, and what b-roll to film. Even when we plan something beforehand, the video always takes its own form as we create it.

I’m often asked why I don’t step into the interviewer role more often. So far, I’ve only been in front of the camera once for a Spirit Week video this year, and I enjoyed the glimpse into the other side of the lens. While I may take on an on-camera role more often in the future, the behind-the-scenes work remains a gratifying, albeit challenging, experience.