Video creation projects challenge students and deliver multiple benefits.

“It has allowed my creativity to shine through and I feel it has given me the edge over other graduates when looking for employment.”  

It has been thirteen years since Senior Lecturer Emma Tappin started teaching her video creation modules for Harper Adams and every year students echo those sentiments expressed by environmental management student Richard Wilkinson above.   

Richard said: “The fourth-year and second-year video creation modules Emma runs are the two favourite modules I have done here at Harper Adams. 

“This module specifically allows us to use our creativity and Emma allowed for us all to work to our own strengths, something we do not always get to do.” 

Final year student Richard adds that “as someone who finds academic work challenging this module was more relaxed, that is not to say it was not hard or had its own challenges – far from it!”  

One major problem, Richard and classmate Sam Dawson encountered was undertaking this module during the Covid-19 pandemic. Usually, students would be on-site, able to hold physical meetings, and have all the campus resources at their disposable.  

Not this year - but Richard and Sam admit that undertaking this module during lockdown benefitted them more than they expected. 

“Because of Covid-19, we had to rely on and learn a great deal about using Microsoft Teams and other online software when creating our videos. Being able to use these tools, not only benefited us across all of our other studies but potential employers have also been impressed with these skills.” 

Richard, Sam and their groups were tasked with producing a video for The Shropshire Wildlife Trust to raise awareness about either the benefits of nature or how people mistreat and take nature for granted.  

Richard said that he and his group “decided to use the pandemic and lockdown as a means of highlighting the need for change” in their video, Grey to Green (watch below). The main principle being that pre-lockdown, people ignored, mistreated, or took for granted, nature. 

 “To highlight this principle, the video started off bland and grey during the lockdown and would then move to post-lockdown where everything is brighter and greener, highlighting how nature enriches our lives and needs to be taken care of.” 

Similarly, Sam said of his team’s final product, Listen to Nature, that “we aimed to produce an innovative video incorporating sounds and images of nature with the aim of enabling viewers to walk through the seasons and enjoy nature in a time when some might be scared to do so physically or who are simply too busy to.” 

Due to the type of video Sam and his group wanted to create, one problem for them was the experience of gathering material. 

“Our aim was to use sounds that were accessible while we did find quality sounds and images to use, it was frustrating when the perfect sound or image was not available under creative commons licensing. However, as a group we adapted and used what we could and, in the end, we were really happy with how the video turned out! 

 If you want to witness the innovation that goes on at Harper Adams book onto the next open day.