Lights, Camera, Action! SCC's Visual Communication Classes Prepare Students for Growing Video Production Careers
Published on Aug 7, 2023
Lights, camera ... action! An area educator says south-central Kentucky is getting more and more screen time these days. As a result, he says that learning video production skills can lead to fast action in the local job market.
Shane Smith heads the Media Arts program at the Laurel County Center For Innovation (CFI) and serves as an adjunct instructor with Somerset Community College’s (SCC) Visual Communication: Multimedia program.
“There’s more opportunity now than there’s ever been in the field, especially online,” Smith says. “You can make a good living as a freelance editor right now. There are so many people looking for content to be edited and people are looking for YouTube videos to be made ... or Instagram reels, or Tik Toks..."
He says that there are more jobs available in this area than there are workers with video production skills. “If you have good internet access and a decent computer that can edit pretty quickly ... the sky’s the limit and that’s not even going into bigger production,” Smith says.
At SCC, Smith teaches four classes that can lead to a Video Production certificate, diploma, or an associate in applied science degree. He says that students receiving these credentials and those in the CFI program are ready to go to work in the digital production industry.
“They’re not going to be an expert at that point (of certification), but it would allow them to start doing some entry-level work in the industry,” he said. “Or if they wanted to go the entrepreneurial route, it would give enough of a foundation to get started.” Students in Smith’s classes have the advantage of learning from an instructor who is very familiar with both sides of the camera.
With degrees from Western Kentucky University in Broadcast Journalism and Geology with an emphasis in Meteorology, Smith began his professional career in 2008 as the weekend meteorologist and reporter for WOAY-TV in Oak Hill, West Virginia. The Laurel County native moved closer to home in 2013 when a weekend meteorologist position became available at WYMT-TV in Hazard. Working alongside meteorologist Jim Caldwell, Smith took over chief meteorologist duties when Caldwell left to go to WKYT-TV Lexington.
An opportunity to move back to Laurel County came in 2016 when he accepted the position to oversee CFI’s Media Arts program, a position he still holds. Pathways for high school students in that program are Video Production, Cinematography and Graphic Design. While at the school, Smith has earned a master’s degree in Career and Technical Education and received a Career and Technical Principal certification from Eastern Kentucky University.
Smith continues to use his real-world video production skills by freelancing as a
meteorologist on “an as-needed basis” with TV stations WYMT and WKYT, where he works
with his former co-worker Caldwell who now serves as the station’s morning meteorologist.
And, if being a full-time instructor, adjunct instructor and freelance TV weatherman weren’t enough to keep him busy, Smith also produces a YouTube channel, “Meteorologist Shane Smith,” and has several hundred followers. “I try to get a video up about every week or two covering the weather in Kentucky,” he says. “It keeps the skills fresh and lets me do something I love. Something just for fun that could grow into something bigger.”
Smith’s background and continued work in the digital production field makes him an excellent instructor, says Professor Cindy Burton, coordinator of SCC’s Visual Communication: Multimedia program. “Shane is a man of many talents, and our program is exceedingly fortunate to have him on our teaching team,” she says. “But it’s the students who are the most fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about video production from someone as experienced and skilled as he is.”
Smith began teaching for the college in 2021 and says he has “a great time with it.” He noted that some of his high school students at CFI also take SCC classes, including the ones he teaches, as Dual Credit courses. This program offers high school students an opportunity to take college courses at a discounted cost. “If you can get a kid 30 credit hours (taking Dual Credit classes), that’s a whole year of college,” Smith points out.
“I very much enjoy sharing what I’ve learned and like trying to help students make their path (to completion) shorter,” he says. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have a lot of opportunities like Dual Credit or access to a high-quality program in a community and technical college nearby or online. The web has been the great equalizer and has created so much more opportunity, not just for education but also for the employment side of it. You can marry those two together and it’s a beautiful thing.”
And while technology in the industry is constantly changing, Smith says there is one constant—the ability to meet a deadline. “It’s all about the deadline,” he says. “If a business wants a YouTube video, they need it now. They don’t need it a week from now...You’ve got to be able to bang it out quick.”
Smith says his mission as an instructor is to help students “develop those skills to tell the stories that you need to tell the target audience. That’s what we teach, and we also teach the techniques to get there ... give students that baseline foundation and then they’re going to continue to learn by doing.”
Fall semester classes at SCC begin Monday, August 14 and Smith will be teaching courses in Foundations of Video Production and Adobe After Effects. Besides the Video Production certificate, diploma and AAS degree, SCC’s Visual Communication: Multimedia program also offers training and credentials in Digital Photography, Digital Design and Web Design. Registration for these and all other classes are currently underway.
(Note: A recent article highlighted the career of SCC alumnus Jordan Smith, who is also a Lexington TV meteorologist. While Jordan Smith and Shane Smith share an SCC connection and the same last name, they are not related.)
