Originally created for the 2019 Fresno Christian Auction, March 9, “Fresno Christian: Going Places,” by senior video journalist Wesley Hinton, earns a Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) Gold Circle Award, April 14.

The 36th annual FCS auction theme, ‘Going Places’ focused on the school’s future and the ways students contribute to their communities. Hinton decided to bring the idea to life with a visual representation of the theme.

Feather video journalist Hinton shares about the making of the award-winning video, Going places.

“This video is one of my favorite projects that I’ve worked on,” Wesley said. “Although it’s not perfect, it was fun to work on a project that supported Fresno Christian because it has given me so many great opportunities to learn and serve. This video was very time consuming but I think the end result was definitely worth it.”

After showing the commercial at the auction as well as posting it online, Hinton received many congratulations and compliments on well-made video. Later, feather adviser Kori Friesen decided to submit the video as an entry in the CSPA 37th Gold Circle Awards program. 

Feather adviser, U.S. history and AP history teacher Friesen talks about the process of the video and what made it unique compared to other videos.

“We submitted at least 30 pieces of work for The Feather and one of the categories was Commercial, so I choose to include Wes on that because we had just done a commercial video for the 36th auction,” Friesen said. “We sat down to decide how to make it into ‘Going Places’ and ended up thinking, why don’t we ask people outside of the Fresno Christian community. What made the video unique was that we used interviews from the city leaders who share their perspective of Fresno Christian’s impact on the community.”

The video featured interviews from Bob Whalen, Jerry Dyer, Lee Brand, and Paul Loeffler. 

Over 5,700 yearbook and digital media entries were submitted in 91 categories. Among the thousands of entries, only 656 winners for both yearbook and digital media for either first, second or third place were awarded. The video was awarded in the category of Video Commercial.

“I took a lot of inspiration from Casey Neistat with his simple method of using an overhead camera and everyday objects to portray information in a more interesting way,” Hinton said. “I like the way it looks and it makes information that would normally be boring more engaging. I hoped to portray to the audience that Fresno Christian is a great school that gives students strong roots in Christ and opportunities to use that knowledge to serve the community and the people around them.”

Congratulations to Wesley Hinton on winning a CSPA Gold Circle!

The video team as a whole was also awarded merit for their Video PSA, “Choices: Teen Pressures, Substance Abuse Contribute to Health Issues, Social Misconceptions,” for more background on that story, check out Video journalists present ‘Choices.’

Fresno Christian: Going Places from The Feather Online on Vimeo.

For more Feather photos, visit media, photos 2019-20.