It Gets Better Project – Rutgers-Camden

In February and March, videographer Sarah Punderson and I had the pleasure of working on a video project with students from two classes at Rutgers-Camden. Their professors, Dawn Walsh and Ellen Malenas Ledoux, received a grant from the new Digital Studies Center at Rutgers-Camden to fund a student-produced video for the It Gets Better Project. The students from Professor Walsh and Dr. Ledoux’s classes researched gender issues, storyboarded scenarios, wrote scripts, acted, casted, filmed, recorded audio, edited video, sourced music, and planned a premiere screening event. It was a whirlwind endeavor to complete in two months, but everything went off without a hitch. I want to give special props to the crew, in particular, who had a three hour crash course in video production before our first day of shooting. The video stands as a testament to their willingness to learn a lot in a very short amount of time. Additionally, the editing team probably logged the most hours on the project and deserve special recognition. The students also submitted the video for the Margery Somers Foster Undergraduate Multimedia Award, which  recognizes “the creative use of university library collections in the production of a multimedia-based research project focused on women’s or gender issues.” The Rutgers-Camden It Gets Better video co-won the 2015 Margery Somers Foster Undergraduate Multimedia Award. It was very exciting that the students’ hard work paid off with such special recognition. I’d like to thank Professor Walsh and Dr. Ledoux for the opportunity to work on this important project.