Abstract:

During the Summer of 2011 YouTube and Columbia College Chicago organized an eight week long course designed to prepare the future media makers for the future of media. For the first time ever the leading technology company Google and its subsidiary YouTube shared with an educational institution the best practices in creating video content and optimizing distribution strategies for highest viewership and audience building and cultivation. The curriculum for the program was built in a highly collaborative way with over 30 YouTube/Google engineers participating in building an online document. Over the period of eight weeks students heard from 38 guest speakers who were either successful video creators or YouTube/Google engineers and product managers. A group of 20 students created video content which received a total of over one million views during the course of the eight week long course.

This presentation will discuss the curriculum of the YouTube creator institute, as well as the experience of co-organizing a large educational event with a large corporate entity.

Columbia College Chicago’s Television Department teaches the art of telling, and delivering the stories that shape, inform, entertain, and inspire people’s lives every day. From initial concept to final broadcast (or podcast), Columbia students work in front of the camera and behind the scenes in a highly collaborative community of writers, producers, directors, effects, and post-production teams, They learn to make drama, reality, sketch, news, documentary, and comedy shows for viewing on multiple canvases.

The Internet and Mobile Media concentration emphasizes the writing and production of emerging forms of episodic and stand alone content including mobisodes, webisodes, interactive and viral video. Students in this concentration produce both individually directed and collaborative projects which are distributed through web and mobile devices.

Born and raised in Poland, Wojciech Lorenc is a supporter of independent, entrepreneurial approach to creating television and an advocate of using emerging technologies in both distribution and visual storytelling. He has worked in the television industry as a producer, director, shooter, and editor and his teaching focuses on directing and producing as well as internet and mobile media.
He has screened his work in over 80 festivals in 15 countries and he won awards both in the US and internationally. Wojciech's work in the areas of online delivery and exploring social media for content distribution has allowed him to reach over 20 million viewers worldwide with various projects.

Keywords:

Youtube social media online video.