See yourself graduate on DVD

 

This year, for the first time, graduating Concordia students and their proud families will be able to buy a digital video disc of their convocation ceremony.

Convocation has been steadily going high-tech. Last year, a company called Momentum projected the action onstage onto a large screen so that those seated at the back of the hall could have a better view.

DVDs were made of the 2004 spring and 2004 fall convocations as trial runs. This year, the university is ready to offer the DVDs for sale.

Five DVDs will be made by Quietus Film, one of each ceremony, and the university will break even if about 500 are sold. That’s about 15 per cent of this year’s graduating class.

For $24.95 plus tax, the purchaser will get a DVD with about two and a half hours of professional footage. This will include highlights of the convocation ceremony, and close-ups of students receiving their degrees from Chancellor Eric Molson.

It will also include scenes of life on campus, and a commemorative “convocation collage” that will be a fitting memento of this high point in the student’s academic career.

Because it’s an innovation, a special effort is being made to promote the DVDs. Promotional flyers and order forms are being inserted in the packages mailed this week to potential graduates by the Office of the Registrar. They will also be distributed with the academic gowns on June 7, 8 and 9 and at convocation itself, on June 13,14 and 15.

A page on the alumni website and on the convocation website will promote and take orders for these DVDs. There will be monitors at gowning showing short, five-minute portions of selected material.

Jesse Heffring, who is producing the DVDs for Quietus, studied film production at Concordia, and will likely graduate himself next year.