Director of Commencement, CU Boulder

A film for forty thousand people, once a year

Every spring, CU Boulder fills Folsom Field and plays one video to the graduating class. I have directed it three years running. I write it, film it, cut it, and get it approved by the Chancellor before it goes on the stadium Jumbotron.

My Role

What I handle

Concept and theme, the script and student narration, the shot list and storyboard, five months of filming, the edit, and the approval process. I lead a team of two and work with four campus groups. There is no professional help. If I don’t come through, neither does the video.

The Challenge

Four problems, every single year

The brief resets every spring, but the same four problems show up each time.

The Pipeline

Nine months, three phases

The film is a production schedule before it is a video. Pre-production runs through the fall, filming takes five months across campus events, and the last stretch is revisions and approval.

Finding the Story

Every year needs a reason to exist

The theme comes first, and it comes from whatever actually defined the year. A campus-wide moment, a hire everyone was talking about, something nobody will forget. I put a photo shortlist together around it and take it to the Chancellor before I write a single line.

Production

Five months of footage, one voice

Filming runs alongside the school year, so I am scheduling around classes, mine and my assistant’s. Some footage I shoot myself, some comes from film banks across campus. Different people, different styles, and all of it has to end up sounding like one film.

Getting to Yes

The edit is only half the job

Every cut goes to Senior Class Council, then to the Chancellor’s office. Multiple rounds of revisions, each one tightening the pacing and pulling the story back toward the theme we approved. Learning to take that feedback without losing the film is the part I use everywhere else.

Three Years In

The same brief, three different films

Directing it three times is a system. Each year I kept what worked, cut what did not, and left the next version a better starting point than I got.

By The Numbers

Three years, counted