Photo Source: Tacie MItchell

“I think every little kid kind of goes through a phase where they want to make videos with their friends,” said senior Tacie Mitchell. 

However, for Tacie, that “little kid” phase never died out, and after forgetting about her senior project and desperately needing one, Tacie quickly thought up the idea of filming promotion videos for small businesses. 

“I’m reaching out to the local businesses and filming little promo videos for them to post on their social media to help advertise for them,” Tacie explained. 

Tacie received her first camera at the influential age of eight. She grew to love it and is now using her love of film to give small businesses a chance to be recognized. 

“I wanted to do something that involves filmmaking because that’s just something I am passionate about,” Tacie expressed.

Later she explained, “I knew I wanted to do bigger things [in filmmaking], but I just needed to practice first.” Tacie wants to pursue a career in design marketing and is using her project to build up her portfolio. Whether she decides to follow her plan of design marketing or not, it is a great opportunity to build up her resume. 

Tacie works solo; filming, editing, publishing, and imagining ideas all by herself. 

“It’s all me,” she explains. 

When Tacie comes across a business with a social media presence, few followers, and few advertisements, she contacts them about filming a promotion video through email or Instagram. If they respond wanting to take the opportunity, Tacie sets up a meeting to discuss what they want to be featured in their promotion video. 

Tacie’s process for producing a promotional video is simple. If it is a business with a physical store or a performance program like Synergy, she “film[s] as much as [she] can, and [she] will try to find a trending audio on Instagram.” 

If it is a video of a product, it gets “more difficult.” Tacie will “just mess around with the angles until [she] gets enough footage that [she] thinks looks interesting.” 

Tacie usually receives full artistic liberty to design the promotion video however she likes. 

Tacie explains that most businesses don’t know what they want to be showcased in their videos. Usually, businesses are plain confused about what Tacie wants to do for them. “So they just give me full range to do whatever,” Tacie laughed. 

Once Tacie has collected all the footage she needs, she picks out a trending audio and clips the footage together. Tacie explains that using a trending audio acquires “more views” on the videos.

On average, it takes Tacie two to three days to fully produce and publish a promo video. So far, she has created four promotional videos for four businesses: Paper Crane, Canyon Ridge Synergy, Hey; You Matter, and Ava Cakes. Tacie hopes to create around three more videos for her project. 

Tacie’s journey has not been easy. It has been a new process in which she has become more confident in her skills, and in herself. Besides giving back to the small businesses of the community, Tacie has seized the chance to put herself out there and accomplish something she wants to do.

“I’m really happy overall. It’s definitely scary, putting [videos] out there because I know that a lot of people from school can see it. They might think it doesn’t look good, so that is a little scary,” Tacie shares. 

All of the businesses have been impressed by Tacie’s promotion videos. They didn’t expect much of a girl they didn’t know asking them if she could film an advertisement for them, and they were highly impressed when they were completed. 

“Most everyone that I’ve done [videos] for has seemed pretty impressed by the end, and they are grateful and willing to repost it to their page,” Tacie describes. 

One of Tacie’s major challenges has been stress. It turns stressful sometimes worrying about a video not doing well. Tacie doesn’t want to let anybody down, especially when she has worked so hard on creating a video for a business she reached out to. 

Another significant challenge has been the “little hiccups” Tacie has encountered along the production process. However, they are usually small mistakes in editing that no one notices. 

“There’s been little hiccups that come along… but you just learn to work around it,” Tacie says. 

More people have reached out to Tacie and have “been more supportive than not.” Many of her classmates and “people’s moms” have reached out as well to tell Tacie how great her videos look.  

“Overall, it’s just been exciting, and it’s been good,” Tacie illustrates. 

Tacie’s most nerve-racking moment was when she posted the video explaining her senior project on Instagram. She did not know how her project was going to go. Compared to that stage of not knowing what was to come, Tacie now feels extremely proud of what she has accomplished. She has grown from this experience more than anything.

“I think that’s just part of the growing process. I mean, just accepting it’s not going to be perfect, and you just post it anyway because if you try hard to make it perfect, then you’re never going to post anything,” Tacie comments. 

Tacie’s senior project account can be found on Instagram at tacie.sarah.film