An Overview
Hi again 🙂
My current class is Digital Media in Marketing with Benjamin Holk Henriksen, it focuses on the basics of marketing and commercial making. It runs 9am-12pm every weekday and there’s about 20 people total in my class. The class is an in-person lecture, similar to most classes at my home college, the University of New Hampshire (UNH).
I’m two weeks into this three week course and I am really enjoying it. I like the professor, the topics, and the setup of the class. The professor is very passionate about film and I think that a passionate professor always makes a class better. He likes when students ask questions and never shames wrong answers.
Activities In and Outside of Class
The class consists of demonstrations, field studies, group work, readings/videos, and exams. When the professor goes over the topics he often does a demonstration or an activity. For example, when he went over how to do a shot list (each type of film shot you want for the commercial) he had us look at a scene and figure out how many shots were needed and what type of shots they were. We also do field studies where we either go somewhere or have a guest speaker. The first field study was at a VR studio with a presentation on VR and we were able to experience VR for ourselves (my favorites being the planet Earth one and hitting music blocks with lightsabers). The second field study was a guest speaker on commercial film making and his experience as an editor in that field.
There is a group project where we have to make a creative brief paper, a presentation, a 30 second commercial, and a 2 minute commercial. All of the listed group assignments are on a company of our choice (My group chose Somersby Hard Cider). For homework, there are readings, videos, and exams. Unless its a group work day, we usually have readings and videos to watch. There’s an e-book for our textbook and links to outside readings and videos. They don’t take long to do, maybe about 30 minutes at the most. There are two exams in this course, they are both take home exams and he posts them on Friday and they are due the next class. I have taken the first exam and it was a mixture of topics from the readings and in class lecture
The First Week
The first week of class was about the basics of marketing. There’s no previous knowledge or experience required for this course. If you have taken a marketing course like I have, then this week will be somewhat of a refresher and help fill the gaps left behind. The first day (Tuesday for me) was the syllabus day and I got lost, but I eventually found the classroom and was only 20 minutes late (the worst part is that I live next door to the classroom building!). If you have noticed I keep calling him “professor” and not his name, it’s because I missed his entire introduction to himself and I don’t know what he is comfortable with. He assigned the groups on the Thursday of that week and we started our group project in the last hour of that day. He gave us Friday as a group work day and we presented when we came back on Tuesday (there was a holiday on Monday). He also assigned a exam on Friday to be due on Tuesday.
The Second Week
The second week was about how to produce commercials and the pre-production process, really fleshing out your commercial ideas. We had four days of lecture and learning about types of commercials, types of shots, filming styles, taglines, and loglines. On Friday, we had group work. We brainstormed our commercial ideas and they are fun and cheesy. We will start filming next Monday and Tuesday(June 5 and June 6). Then our presentation will be on next Thursday. The only other thing that we have left to do is the final exam which is due next Monday.
Summary
So far, I have been enjoying Digital Media in Marketing a lot. It has a very good set up and a great professor. I thought that a 3 credit course done in 3 weeks would be a lot, but it’s very manageable. I’m usually a very busy person during each semester with club involvement, work, and a big course load. Comparatively, this gives me a lot of free time to explore Copenhagen and hang out with my friends. I heard great things from other students about the classes that they’re in. I think DIS does a great job at deciding what students can handle and has fantastic staff. One recommendation that I would make to future students is to bring a notebook and something to write with because it’s one of the few things that DIS doesn’t provide (I personally have to write things down physically to remember it).