SAA MediaMedia Production
SAA’s high school filmmaking class — shoot, edit, and publish real videos, from music videos and mini-documentaries to the school’s own films.
Media Production is where SAA students learn to make video the way it’s actually made: plan a story, run the camera, cut the edit, grade the color, and ship something an audience will actually watch. It’s a hands-on, project-driven class — the school year is a stack of finished films, not a pile of worksheets.
Over the past three years the class has evolved from a small video-production elective into a full digital-media course. Students work in professional tools used in real post-production, from editing and color to motion graphics, audio, and effects. Along the way they learn the craft fundamentals that don’t go out of date: composition, lighting, story structure, and how to tell a story in pictures.
For students — the Media Coach
Before you hit record, get your settings right. Tell the coach what you”re shooting — frame rate, lens, lighting, audio, and how you”re holding the camera — and it walks you through exposure, the 180-degree shutter rule, sound, and stabilization for the gear in this class.
What students learn
Every student works through the full production pipeline, from an idea to a published video.
Edit & color in DaVinci Resolve
Industry-standard editing, timeline work, and color grading — the same software used on real films and commercials.
Fast edits in CapCut
Quick-turnaround cuts, effects, and mobile workflows for when the deadline is now, not next week.
Clean sound in Audacity
Record, edit, and mix audio so the whole piece lands — because bad sound kills a good video.
The projects
This is the heart of the class. Students choose from a menu of real, filmable assignments, each one teaching a different part of the craft:
- Music video
- Sports & action video
- Split-screen video
- Practical effects lab
- Mini-documentary
- Video diary
- A tall tale
- Speed-ramp video
- Magic mask
- Story told on a line
- Surprise-ending short
- Tripod-only challenge
- Color correction
- Shooting B-roll & lighting
Mark Janke
This year’s Media Production & Photography teacher
Why it matters
The work students make here isn’t graded in a vacuum — it’s shown. Finished projects publish to the school’s student-work gallery and to each student’s own portfolio site. The audience is real, so the stakes are real, and that’s where the learning actually sticks.
Students who finish the class leave with a portfolio of finished video they can point to — and a working knowledge of the tools and craft behind it.
See what students are making
Browse this year’s student portfolios and the program’s work gallery, or learn more about the middle-school media courses that feed into this class.