PRISM, Virginia Tech’s premier faculty-led, student-run digital marketing agency and 2019 Outstanding Student Organization of the Year, received two Bronze Tellys from the 41st Annual Telly Awards.
“This is a huge accomplishment for PRISM and I am so happy to be a part of this,” said Chris Marano, PRISM Creative Director.
The Telly Awards, established in 1979, recognize excellence in television and video across all digital mediums. Entries are judged by a council of renowned video and television experts from some of the world’s most prominent entertainment, advertising, publishing and technology companies.
PRISM’s two most recent award-winning videos, the 2019 Pamplin Graduation Video and 2019 PRISM Recruitment Video, were chosen among over 13,000 entries.
“We wanted to create an underlying story which would show growth in the main character and allow that person to pass something off to the next generation,” Marano said, explaining the graduation video. “The story was perfectly created by PRISM and Virginia Tech alum Rachel Bryner. Once her idea was written out, storyboarded and approved, we got to work.”
After three weeks of long days and nights spent framing and executing the best shots, and additional time spent editing, the PRISM multimedia team sent the video to the PRISM executive team and a board of Pamplin faculty, all of whom loved the video.
“This entry stood out from the thousands of videos entered in the Telly Awards because this was college students creating a video with industry standards,” Marano said. “The quality in not only the video itself, but the storyline, was top notch. This was a mini movie made into a graduation video.”
In contrast to the graduation video, the process of creating the recruitment video was a much less linear path—and the final product was very different from past PRISM work—but evidently the risks paid off.
“One month before the deadline I got a frantic message asking me if I had any video editing experience, because both our editors were wrapped up in other projects and couldn't do the recruitment video,” said Kendyl Florence, Account Manager for PRISM’s 10 year anniversary initiatives. “We had a voiceover and footage ready, so I set off creating the already story-boarded video. Then, the literal day before the deadline, I decided I hated the video and was completely uninspired by it. I got a new idea for a concept we hadn't done before and we stayed up all night planning it out.”
Needless to say, the news of this prestigious award came as a pleasant surprise to Kendyl and the PRISM team.
“This award is so surprising to me since, like I said, I was the literal last resort and I had no clue what I was doing...I had never edited something like this and was really insecure about the result—even though I did the best I could,” Florence said. “I think this proves that PRISM gives its members so many ways to branch out and succeed, and that sometimes taking a creative shot in the dark is worth it!”
PRISM is honored to have been recognized with these awards, but we know the hard work doesn’t stop here. We are excited for a new year and a new decade of continuing to push the envelope and challenging ourselves to create great work.
Stay tuned for more news and updates about PRISM as we celebrate our 10 year anniversary and look to recruit new members to our powerhouse team!