Recently, the Purple Clarion was invited to make a video to be showcased at an IHSA event. With athletic director and coach Greg Langley’s retirement approaching, they decided that a video focusing on his impact on students and his coaching would be the best route to take.
The video features interviews with teachers, parents, and wrestlers. It’s meant to showcase his abilities and be a token of appreciation for his coaching.
“[Christopher Jackson] reached out to us. It’s a new project by the media company that televises IHSA events,” newspaper advisor Cathy Wall said.
The videos will look like what would be seen on the morning news showcasing someone or an achievement of theirs. Most of the editing is being done by members of the Purple Clarion, but WCIU, Jackson’s company, will be doing some as well.
“(They are) going to be the ones putting on the more typical news overlays, like names and such, so I didn’t have to worry about doing that,” Purple Clarion editor Frankie Messerschmidt said.
As with most video projects, the Clarion’s involved using a storyboard to arrange shots, interview placement, and voiceover clips. While the storyboard is incredibly useful for basic planning, sometimes it can be hard to include every detail that was originally planned.
“There ended up being a lot of clips we didn’t end up getting, so I had to figure out if I was able to fill those spots with something else, or if they had to completely be cut,” Messerschmidt said.
Even if not everything can be included, the storyboard is a baseline and can be changed. However, even if it’s changed from the original plan, the editing has to show those qualities and convey the idea of a news feature.
“Mostly my focus was to just get everything put together and have everything look like it flows and belongs together,” Messerschmidt said.
Even with the slight difficulties in editing that Messerschmidt has faced, the main idea of the video is still to show how Langley’s coaching has affected his students and those around him.
“Mr Langley’s retirement creates a hole in our athletic department that will be challenging to fill, but I am certain that he has been preparing those who will come after him so that Harrisburg’s wrestling program remains strong,” Wall said.
