When the Missouri S&T alumni office approached us with an idea for creating a video to help our new freshman class understand the history of our university, we put our heads together and came up with this fun, just-under-four-minute video, which made its debut at convocation this morning. We posted it on YouTube minutes ago, and are about to unleash it to our students, alumni and others via various electronic means.
Well, we think it’s fun, anyway. Let me know what you think of it — either here or on the Missouri S&T YouTube site.
Special thanks go to our videographer, Tom Shipley, who poured his heart and soul into this project over the summer, and to our assistant director, Mindy Limback, who created the script. Other writers and graphic designers on our staff pitched in, too, to make this a true team effort, and our electronic marketing staff has been involved in getting it ready for online distribution.
P.S. – Our alumni association plans to use this video to promote the university’s history to various chapters throughout the country.
P.P.S. – If you see Al Capone’s mugshot as the opening image, you should know that we’ve changed that. But as of this moment, YouTube hasn’t pushed the change out.
Andy writes! 
I love this! Great job showing the development and accomplishments of the university through the years!
Looks great! Very impressive – I had no idea Missouri S&T had such a strong NASA connection.
My only suggestion is to change the line at the end from “We welcome our most best ever freshman class” to just “our best ever” (deleting most). I don’t know if it’s at all possible to make any changes at this point (or if it’s even worth it) – but it just sounds a bit awkward to me. But overall I think it’s a wonderful video – held my attention all the way through!
Nicely done, kudos!
Thanks for the feedback, folks.
Tracy – Regarding your comment on “most best ever freshman class” at the end, it’s sort of an inside joke based on our St. Pat’s tradition, where every year it’s the “best ever.” We use the phrase a lot to promote that event (our Best Ever blog is one example). We wrestled over whether to use “most best ever” but ultimately decided to keep it, knowing that the students and our alumni would get it — even though it’s grammatically incorrect. But thank you for catching that! It also tells me that you watched the whole video. ;)
Ah, got it! Well in that case, nevermind!
If I’d focused on the “4 minutes” part of your email, I would have said that was too long for an online video, but this really moved quickly and held my attention. Really well done! Bravo: nice blend of historical & contemporary images & effective messaging. Bravo!
Andrew, well done. I think alumni in particular will like this video. It’s short enough for new students to handle it, and their parents should like it. The graphics work well, and I like the voice-over voice. It gave a laid back feel to the fast moving piece. I think I would have preferred more about the university in the beginning of the timeline, like you did at the end, but I’m sure your director put in what worked best.
Have you thought of a slightly different version for the alumni, with reference only to the new class, and a thank you at the end to the alumni? Just a thought.
Way to go!
Great Job. Really enjoyed it. Great way to tell the story.
Excellent video! Kudos :)
Very clever–love everything about it!
Awesome video! Very well done. It is very engaging and attention grabbing. I really liked the US history tidbits floating throughout along with some of the local history (Alex’s) to tie in some of the local community. Graphics and music are up-to-date. Really shows a depth of scientific and alumni achievement in a short exciting manner. Well done! It could also be edited into 30 sec pieces or 60 pieces for a variety of other purposes too.