Title

Photo & Video

Candids

• Photos of people at Rockhurst should primarily use natural lighting to tell the story.
• Photos shouldn’t be cluttered with people or objects and should have a clear focal point.
• Try to photograph subject(s) in a setting that helps tell a story visually, such as a part of campus or a classroom to establish depth.

Portraits

• Utilize natural light (or soft artificial lighting) to portray the subject in a natural setting.
• Try to photograph subject in a setting that helps tell a story visually.
• Photograph subject in setting that feels native and natural to them for authenticity.

Headshots

• Direct studio lighting is used to photograph subjects on a solid background for a variety of uses.
• Do not use harsh lighting.
• Headshot scheduling:
  • Fill out the Wrike request form for a marketing request.
  • Someone from the marketing team will reach out to you to schedule a time and location for the photo.

Any individuals photographed for marketing and communications purposes must sign an official photo release waiver.

Photos of campus help us show what it’s like to be a part of the campus community. Campus can be photographed from a variety of perspectives to illustrate campus life.

Classroom Learning

• Photos taken in the classroom help further illustrate what life on campus is really like.
• Classroom photos should have clear focal points and show students and faculty engaging in classroom studies.
• Images should have an active tone, with individuals visually engaging in the classroom experience through visual or physical expressions.

Service-Learning

• Service to others is a pillar of the learning experience at RU.
• This includes photos depicting students in settings where they are providing service to others at on- or off-campus locations.
• Photograph to visually show the interaction with campus community at off-campus locations.

• Do not stretch photos
• Do not pixelate or blur photos
• Do not alter the photos through Photoshop or other programs

Belonging/Home for All

Campus community/campus shots

Impact our World

Service to others

Challenge/Inspire

Classroom/learning

Music should be incorporated on most videos. If interviews or other speaking audio is included, music should be kept at a minimal level during those sections in order for the speaking audio to be heard clearly (-30 dB or less for the music).

Music choices should match the mood or tone of the video and be free from copyright concerns. If there are lyrics, they should be not contain profanity or anything opposing Rockhurst’s values, message and mission. Visit artlist.io to browse the selection of licensed music available for use.

Rockhurst University must obtain the license or expressed approval of all music for use in any external video communications.

Lower Thirds should always be added to videos that include interviews. Details to be included are the person’s name, title, subject/department, and for students, year in school (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate student) and major(s) for undergrads and graduate degree program for graduate students.

When designing a lower third, use colors and fonts from the Rockhurst University Brand Guidelines. The selected color(s) should not interfere with the readability of the text. Also, lower thirds should be positioned inside the boundaries of the outer safe margins guide in Premiere Pro or After Effects.

A universal end slate should be used on all projects. The end slate will be refreshed every year but should remain consistent on all projects. Visit brand.rockhurst.edu to obtain the current end slate graphic.

If a project relates to a previous video or is part of a series, the standard YouTube end slate for additional selections should be used to promote related videos.

Cards succeed when placed in conjunction with scripted calls to action or when they are relevant to additional Rockhurst video content. For example, if a specific video or website is mentioned, or there is a call to action to register for an event or submit an application, cards can be used at that exact moment. “For more information” cards should be in the last 20% of the video to prevent the viewer from moving on before the end slate.

All links should be directed to the rockhurst.edu or rockhursthawks.com websites.

Use cards sparingly as not to litter videos with perceived ads.

Video has become one of the most important digital channels of communication in the 21st century, particularly through sites like YouTube. Closed captioning needs to be included on all YouTube and social media videos.

Although YouTube and other services provide automatically generated captions, these can only be used as a starting point, as the timing, grammar and word recognition is never 100% accurate. Rockhurst employees must “clean up” the captions to ensure they are accurate, readable and timed with the video itself.

For any public-facing video on the the official Rockhurst YouTube page, accurate captions are required before publishing. All videos produced by the Rockhurst Marketing Department will include captions developed by our in-house team.

For individuals at the University submitting a video to the University Marketing Department to be public-facing on the rockhurst.edu site, or on the Rockhurst YouTube page, we require a captions file to be submitted along with the video before it will be posted.

Any text editor (TextEdit, Microsoft Word, etc.) can be used to create the necessary format Marketing can use to convert into a captions file. Follow this format:

[Section of subtitles number]

[Time the subtitle begins] --> [Time the subtitle ends]

[Subtitle]

The timestamp should be formatted as such:

[hours]: [minutes]: [seconds], [milliseconds]

The final product will look something like this:

Captions are not required for videos that are “unpublished” and not placed on the main rockhurst.edu site, but they are still best practice.

Limit text lines to 1-2 per screen; never 3 and follow the Rockhurst writing stylebook.

When adding captions to a video in Premiere Pro use the Din (new san sarif?) font or the current primary sans serif font listed in the Rockhurst University Brand Guidelines. The font size should be at least 60 pt. It should be big enough to read while scrolling on social media. Caption font color should be white. If needed, you can add an 80% opacity black background if the text is hard to read against the background, or use a drop shadow with 100% opacity and 5-7 distance without a background.

Please contact University Marketing with any questions you have regarding the production of captions.

For most videos, the highest possible production standards should apply. Proper exposure, framing, focus and white balance should all be determined and set before a shot is ready to record. Videos should be shot in 4k whenever achievable. A tripod or stabilizing equipment should be used to avoid unstable video shots.

Final videos that will be uploaded to YouTube or social media should be approximately 2:30 or less. Exceptions would be internal videos, unlisted videos or special projects that require a longer duration.

For certain videos, particularly those intended for social media, a lower production quality captured from a smartphone, GoPro, etc. is acceptable. Consult with University Marketing and Communications on what projects would be included in this category.

When exporting a video for social media, follow the file sizing guidelines for each social media site (2021): Facebook: 10 GB (max) 1920 x 1080 pixels, Instagram: 4 GB (max) 60 seconds length (max) 1080 x 1920 pixels, Twitter: 512 MB (max) 2:20 length (max) 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The Rockhurst YouTube channel exists as a “window” into the University and should reflect its values and messaging. Viewers use YouTube as a corollary for traditional television in that a YouTube channel is viewed like a TV channel, and have specific expectations for the content to be found and watched. To that end, it’s imperative that we maintain a consistent look, feel and message in our public YouTube channel feed.

Public videos would include:

• human interest stories
• academic spotlights
• campus showcases
• high quality productions of event highlights or previews
• official statements or direct messages to a broad campus and/or community audience from key University figures

Unlisted or Private videos would include:

Public videos should be scheduled apart from one another the same as a social media post would be scheduled. For video series, aim for the same day/time each week the episodes are released.

All public videos should be considered for embedding on the Rockhurst family of websites.

The video title is determined by popular keywords or questions related to the relative topic and includes University personalization. Words, phrases, and questions can be taken from SEO clients, auto-fill search options on YouTube, as well as select matches from top YouTube search results on the topic.

Descriptions should contain at least five keywords, phrases or questions, though careful attention is given to the first two (visible) sentences.

Tagging should include at least 20 SEO-friendly words, phrases or questions, as well as Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Rockhurst and Kansas City Colleges.

A custom thumbnail should be used for every public video in order to make it attractive to browsing viewers and increase views. Its design should be based on the primary RU playlist it’s included in.

• Individual messages to a specific, smaller audience
• complementary videos to bigger projects
• those requiring sharing, but do not have a broad use, are not consistent with public channel content, or do not reflect University messaging and production quality.

Video/photo releases must be signed for every filming. Releases should be signed by everyone who will be photographed that would be used in marketing and communication materials, social media or for other on-campus uses.