In the spring of 2018, our superintendent in Goochland challenged us to think about pulling a “prank” he’d seen another division do for the August convocation with all of our staff. At that district, the superintendent and his staff showed up late, after showing a video of them purportedly goofing off back at the central office.
The directive was simple: just let’s recreate their video.
As the creative who had to create the video, I wanted something a bit more original for our “prank.” Instead of assuming the stage as he might normally do, we hid outside the auditorium while our superintendent attempted to delay things then finally announces that the assistant superintendent was held up and he’d have to go pick him up. The movie then starts, picturing our superintendent, Dr. Jeremy Raley, marching out of the high school in a huff.
This was one of the most creative things I’d done, and I wrote the script and did most of the filming, with some support from a student volunteer. It involved collaboration with the Goochland Sheriff’s office and the Goochland Fire and Rescue offices. And yes, that is my real car, and no, it wasn’t really on fire.
We learned a few lessons throughout the process too.
- You cannot do professional filming at the Short Pump Mall (we had to eventually secure permission after being escorted off premises)
- Recording without microphones around a water fountain is a bad idea
- You should also not try to film a fake car fire on in a parking lot of a business
That said, the film was a big hit with our staff!
