The Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana is the cradle of critical thinking in Slovenia. It also happens to be the place where one of our team members finished his studies. We were thus absolutely thrilled when we got a call from the Faculty management, who wanted us to produce a video that would present the largest member of the University of Ljubljana.
Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Faculty of Arts, which enrols thousands of students each year, was forced to move the study process to a virtual environment. Not just studies, the information session for high-school graduates also had to be carried out online. For this occasion, the Faculty wanted to produce a video that would present the Faculty and its departments to year-four high school students.
And while the client wanted us to make a few-minute-long video, the Faculty comprises a total of 21 departments and the Physical Education Division. An in-detail presentation of all the departments was out of the question as they wanted each department to be equally represented. This meant we had to approach the project a bit differently. Since we believe in the power of stories, we decided to present the Faculty through storytelling.
Solution
After a few initial meetings with the client, we decided to invite former students at the Faculty of Arts, who are actively engaged in different areas of the Slovene society – culture, non-governmental organizations, media and entrepreneurship. By doing so, we wanted to show that the Faculty of Arts opens up doors to a plethora of different careers paths.
We conducted short interviews the speakers. We asked them to share some memories of studying at the Faculty of Arts and to comment on the current events in the Slovene and international culture and politics by viewing through the prism of the knowledge and experience they gained during their studies. After all, the common ground of all study programs at the Faculty of Arts is that they encourage the development of critical thinking skills among students.
“The 21st century will either be a century of humanities, or it will not exist at all.”
― Claude Lévi-Strauss
As a cherry on top, we invited Vlado Kreslin, who is also a former student at the Faculty of Arts, to cooperate on the project. He accepted our invitation. Especially for this occasion, he recorded a remake of his song “Nocoj bomo mi prižgali dan” with the Kombinat female choir. We filmed his performance on the roof of the Faculty, and Kreslin also used these recordings to produce a music video for the remake of his track.
Outcome
Our client posted short and long versions of the video on Facebook and Youtube. To this date, the initial Facebook post, dated 10 February 2021, has garnered over 38,000 views, 771 likes and 15 comments. We are proud that our video has become the most viewed and engaged-with post by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.
We are constantly on the lookout for good practices by other production teams and agencies, and we would like to point out the trailer Poljane Grammar School’s video, which was released on the same day as our video for the Faculty of Arts. No, it wasn’t us who produced the video, but we like it nonetheless. As we keep emphasizing – the stories and faces of people are the best and most personal way of presenting any institution, company or organization.
