By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

NORTH SHELBY—What goes in to making a video? Students in Briarwood Christian School’s video production class can tell you it’s a whole lot more than filming.

The BCS video production class, under the name Lion Head Media, creates everything from sports pump-up videos to interview-based pieces. They are also responsible for creating a weekly informational video for the entire school.

With the guidance of teacher Matthew Forester, the class has produced 10 weekly videos covering a range of topics, including the area champion women’s volleyball team, a school mission trip to Lincoln Village and interviews with the school’s homecoming candidates.

“We want (students) to enjoy it and look forward to the next video,” BCS student Banks Nash said.

The video production team has also delved into more serious subjects to inform the student body of events going on around them. During a period of in-school drug testing, the class produced a video explaining the basics and importance of drug testing.

“We talked to people who went through it,” Nash said, explaining the video was meant to demystify and dispel some of the rumors surrounding the testing.

Before each project, the class sits down to brainstorm ideas.

“The hardest part is coming up with ideas,” Forester said, noting while many of the ideas are great, finding ones that are logistically feasible can be a challenge.

Once the idea is decided on, the students divvy up the work. Producing a video involves filming, editing footage, creating transitions between clips, adding effects and creating the soundtrack. Filming alone can be time consuming, something as simple as an interview can require multiple takes.

“It just depends on who is interviewing and who is being interviewed,” BCS student Jay Kynerd said.

The finished product is a total team effort, just a two-minute video can take hours of work filming, cutting, editing and perfecting.

“At some points its hard to get all the parts to work together,” Nash said. “It’s an opportunity to teach and learn, it’s a lot of collaborating.”

In addition to the ins and outs of video production, the group has also learned the potential impact their work can have on a large number of people.

“All media sends a message,” Forester said. “We want to make sure we’re sending the right message.”