The Graduate School of Design and Architecture offered high school students the opportunity to experience video production as part of Nagoya City University’s “Grade Skip Challenge,” a high school-university collaboration project. This project is a summer workshop in which high school students receive guidance from teachers and university students on the entire process of modern video production, from story conception and scenario creation to shooting, editing, and adjusting the finished file. We are proud that we were able to provide more knowledge and wisdom to the high school students than just a visit to a laboratory. They learned how to use professional equipment and witnessed a wide range of creative work, including content production and scene design. This initiative also allowed the university students to review the production process from a different perspective than their usual practice. Workshop planning and time management are some of the most critical aspects of design education. We learned about production management practically by welcoming people from outside the university will be a new step forward for future high school-university collaboration.

In addition, due to coronavirus infection control measures, our university does not allow high school students to come to campus in groups. Hence, in 2020 and 2021, we held the open campus, and the exhibition of students’ works online. However, it is essential in design education to proceed with production practice while considering equipment and human relationships. For this reason, the School of Design and Architecture has devised hybrid classes that mix online and face-to-face learning in different classrooms and at different times. The video production for the high school-university collaboration was also conducted with the utmost care, maintaining constant distance, thorough ventilation, and hand disinfection. Many high school students commented that “the outcome was good, and the summer vacation experience was valuable”, proving that these efforts had a certain impact.

Video production through high school-university collaboration

The university students teach video editing