The hype video from the A/V production team has been going on for years, but the video that most are familiar with now with colored lights and smoke machines all started with two students: class of 2023 Reagan Sells and class of 2022 Dani Alfonso. Sells and Alfonso saw another school’s hype video and came to A/V production teacher Jeffrey Mack and asked if they could make something like it. Mack, enjoying giving his students creative freedom, let them start the project and the rest is history.
“It’s cool and it’s fun to see because at a college or pro-sports game they have videos like that entering the game,” Mack said. “To have that at the high school level is just really cool for the kids.”
This year the practicum team includes seniors Janessa Cantu, Tzeitel Agbayani, Kaylie Garza, Mila Sutton, and Garret Snell, as well as juniors Caden Kesner and Genesis Sumner. For this hype video, they used new camera equipment received through the Humble ISD education foundation grant. Their new assets include industry-grade camera equipment that allows students hands-on experience before leaving high school.
“It’s one of the first cameras adults come across either in college or on their first sets,” Mack said. “It’s nice that they’re getting time now to play around with it and figure it out.”
The practicum team worked together on the project and have a voice in how it was filmed. Their production team is named “Buttery Luts Productions” after an inside joke between them.
“Luts are basically things you add to the video to make it more vibrant,” Cantu said. “The ones Caden was using were called buttery luts so we were just making fun of it and saying it a lot, then that became the name of our production.”
There are more students in practicum this year, which Mack said he was worried about due to the possibility of everyone not being able to have a voice in the projects, however everyone got a lot closer during the making of the hype video.
“It’s cool to be with such an ambitious group of people who actually want to be a part of everything,” Sutton said.
For the video, the lights on the football field were supposed to be on, however, once everyone was ready to film the field was completely dark. This didn’t stunt the group though, it actually seemed to work out better in their eyes.
“I think it looked a lot cooler without the lights,” Sumner said. “I feel like there was more focus on the players.”
The hype video has played at Turner stadium already and has over 16,000 views on Instagram. The hard work that went into the project seems to be paying off. They wanted this year’s video to be bigger and better than the last.
“We have to keep trying to make ours better because we know the district is going to copy us,” Mack said. “We have to keep building onto it and stay on top of the game.”
The practicum students, or “Buttery Luts Productions” have put their all into staying on top of the game as Mack has phrased it. A second hype video has come out with game footage edited in and more projects continue to be put out by this team.
“They worked so well together and it was really nice to see,” Mack said. “They all were in on it and they’re so excited for the year and that just warms my heart.”
