Adult Day Services Memory Masterclass Promotional Video

The goal of the project was to create a promotional video for Virginia Tech’s Adult Day Services center, specifically to advertise for their Memory Masterclass program. Adult Day Services is a center located within the Human Development and Family Sciences Department at Virginia Tech. They are licensed by the Department of Social Services to offer personal care, health monitoring, meals, therapeutic activities, dementia care, and recovery assistance. They serve typically 18 participants each operating day who average about 75 years of age. According to ADS’s mission statement, the center is dedicated to providing a center focused on the well-being and optimal functioning of its participants, a resource for caregiver support, an education opportunity for students, and a community among generations of children, college students, and adults. One of ADS’s main service offerings is their Memory Masterclass course. This course is offered in 6-week sessions to participants over 55 years of age who want to maximize their brain health. The focus of the course is to educate and serve people who have been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). MCI is not a symptom or precursor to Alzheimer's or dementia, but rather a condition that occurs as aging changes brain function. In the 6-week course participants learn strategies for application to daily life that can strengthen brain reserve as you age and get connected with others who have similar concerns about memory. Our main objective was to create a promotional video that Adult Day Services could use on their website to inform and attract people to take the class.

This project was broken up into several different stages. The first stage was to meet with our clients, Adult Day Service professionals, to gain a better understanding of the project requirements. Our clients described to us that they would like a video that showcased the active, healthy lifestyle of one of their Memory Masterclass participants. This would include footage of men and women doing outdoor activities, participating in class, and doing mentally-stimulating activities. From meeting with our clients, we came to realize that they wanted a specific type of aesthetic to their video - a combination of active and “homey” footage. An important goal for our clients was to have the video ready to be presented at an AARP event in mid-March, so the first stage of this project had to be completed by that deadline.

The second stage was scheduling time to physically shoot the videos. This involved renting camera and sound equipment, coordinating with our clients and course participants, deciding on filming locations, and collecting the raw footage. Once we had shot all of the raw footage, the third stage was comprised of condensing, cleaning, and enhancing the raw footage to create a preliminary draft of the video. The video was delivered to the client, we received feedback, and have begun work revising the video to meet client specifications. The client will be able to use this video for advertising on the ADS website, as well as at different events where their services are promoted. The fourth stage of this project is what we are currently working on right now. Another recommendation was that we prepare another video that was a bit shorter, approximately 90 seconds long, that could be used as a shorter promotion. This shorter video will likely be a condensed version of highlights from the 4-minute video.

The third stage was to revise the initial version of the video based on client feedback. This involved sitting down with our client and gaining specific insight as to what details they liked and what they wanted to have modified. After we acquired feedback, we were able to reshoot footage that was not preferable and take more shots of outdoor activities. The final version of the video incorporated footage from both stages of filming and incorporated the client's desired changes. This version of the video was also shown to an applicable user pool of Memory Masterclass students who gave us further feedback.