Production Meeting

Every Spring semester, the entire Shepherd campus and community get involved in Relay for Life, an event that raises cancer awareness and raises money to help researchers find a cure. Relay for Life takes place overnight, and the darkness symbolizes the sad news of being diagnosed with cancer, while the morning sunrise when the event ends is symbolic of the survivor's healing and recovery after such a devastating battle. In past years, Shepherd University's Relay for Life committee used a promotional video that educated viewers, participants, and potential sponsors about the purpose of Relay for Life and shared stories of people in the Shepherd community who survived cancer treatments.

This semester, a music video class was presented with the option of creating a new video for Relay. The idea was for something more upbeat and fun that would get people excited about the event, which has the dual purposes of remembrance and celebration. The class viewed St. Vincent Medical Center's "Pink Glove Dance" that is circulating on YouTube as a jumping off point. The class's goal was to create something similar to the Pink Glove Dance video, but modify it and make it applicable to Shepherd and Relay, not just the theme of the pink ribbon for breast cancer.

The class held a meeting with the Shepherd Relay for Life committee, and we came up with really great ideas so far. The color motif of our video is purple, since that is the color theme for Relay for Life, as it symbolizes all cancers and not just breast cancer. The class liked the idea of purple glowsticks being used in dim or dark scenes, but soon realized that lighting and making the shots look good would be difficult. We decided to use purple bandanas since they can be worn or waved in many different ways in any type of lighting and are relatively inexpensive to purchase in mass quantity. I think this will be effective because the bandanas will allow the sequences to be filmed in normal lighting with the dancers' faces visible, and this is very important to the whole message of Relay.

Relay for Life is about hope and knowing that other people will be there for you when you are suffering. By having people's faces visible, there is that element of human contact that would be lost if the class had stuck with their original idea of glowsticks in low lighting. No matter how much fun we have with the video, there is still a serious issue underlying it all--cancer is a serious and terrifying illness, but those who are diagnosed with it are not alone. There is support, and there is hope.