University of Melbourne, Faculty of Arts: postgraduate program series

The brief

The Faculty wanted a video for each postgraduate program in its Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, to show prospective students what the course offers and who it suits. It began in mid-2023 with 10 programs. The Faculty then kept extending it: social edits for an always-on campaign and a retargeting campaign in early 2024, the full suite of 21 programs from April 2024, and ten-second edits in early 2025. Every video had to sit within the University’s brand.

What I did

• Made the Master of Development Studies first, as the template. Its structure, interview questions and look became the reference for every program after it, written into a style guide for crew joining later shoots.
• Planned each shoot to yield more than the first video needed: a 30 to 45 minute interview with each contributor, then a matching block of B-roll, scheduled where possible so contributors were filmed together rather than alone.
• Ran 77 interviews with academics, students and alumni over 40 filming days.
• Tracked every cut through post-production, client feedback, budget and music licensing, with a camera and location log so no two programs repeated a frame.
• Gave the Faculty a shortlist of four or five soundbites for each social edit, which kept reviews focused and left the final choice with them.

Outcome

Each time the Faculty added a format or a program, the new edits could be cut from footage already filmed rather than reshot. The series grew from 10 programs to 21 over three years, through five successive client leads and a University rebrand, which we worked through with the brand team as the new guidelines developed. The Faculty now holds a library of program videos, social edits, clean exports and licensed B-roll that it can reskin when its templates change.

“They manage the perfect balance of collaboration and expert advice.”

Strategy, audiences, campaigns and approvals: Faculty of Arts marketing and University Communications and Marketing. Production: Latitude Video Production.