Doni: Hi, Seth Hemken. Welcome to A News Cafe, and thanks for taking the time to chat with me about your awesome video that’s getting lots of attention.
Before first, before we go any further, I’ll drop your video right here for everyone to see why I wanted to speak with you.
Seth Hemken, Redding School District Director of Technology & Marketing
Seth: Thanks for this, Doni. It’s good to be here. I’ve been a fan of the website for a long time, and mostly love your own writing style, so this is an honor to be interviewed you.
Doni: The pleasure is mine.
Seth, you were/are the director of this back-to-school video project. Can you tell how it came to be?
Seth: Well, yes, so how did this all start? Superintendent Cindy Bishop and I talked back in May about end-of-the-year video projects and some ideas for beginning-of-the-year videos that I could make, something fun, something that would bring joy to the beginning of the school year. We had decided that leading up to the beginning of school, August 14, we would have a countdown video every day, basically two weeks out, where a different Principal would do what we call a “read-aloud.” They would choose their favorite beginning of the year picture book, and I would produce and release these reading videos as a countdown. Then, on the final day before school, Aug 13th, we would have a funny video that would bring joy and laughter and hopefully inspire students and families to be excited to be coming back to school the next day.
Actually, the video was also going to be the “launch” at our Back to School Breakfast event on the morning of the 13th. Everyone in the district comes together, has breakfast, celebrates our new employees and long-time employees, and discusses the focus of our district for the next year. So we decided this video would also be at the end of the event, a way to send everyone off, hopefully in an inspiring way.
Superintendent Bishop loved the idea of showing the principals and vice principals at school during the summer, showing them missing the kids and anxious for the first day of school. We brainstormed some ideas, and I suggested that a music video would work great. I just thought if I could pick the perfect song … everything would come together. So I set to coming up with ideas, jotting them down on my phone during the day when going about other stuff, and most importantly, a discussion with my awesome wife Dez, asking her to help me find the perfect song. I credit her for landing on the amazing ballad by Eric Carmen, All By Myself, that I used. The moment I heard that chorus line I knew it was on.
So I had the song, and a list of ideas basically at the end of May, at the end of the school year, and it was at that time that Superintendent Bishop and I broke the news to the principals at a leadership meeting that I would be doing a BUNCH of video recording with them when they all came back the 2nd week of July. They weren’t crazy thrilled, but at this point they are getting used to me pointing a camera at them. I’d like to think they trust me. I always say to them, “Don’t worry. It’s my job to make you look good.”
So I went about the regular summer projects, and all the while, I would be thinking about the project; jotting down little ideas that came to me, and I’d listen to the song here and there.
By the time the week of July 18th, when the principals were back, I had enough ideas to schedule with them. I basically scheduled about 2 – 3 hours with each of them at their sites. I would show up, discuss some of my ideas, and ask them if they had any ideas about it, too. Then we just went around the campus and shot all types of little sequences. I filmed WAY more than I used. I have enough funny little scenarios I could probably make another video. Maybe I’ll do a director’s cut, or a blooper reel.
After filming with them for about a week off and on around their schedules (which is hard to do with principals the last 2 weeks before school), I think I sat down that first week of August to start editing everything. I had these 14 other reading videos I had recorded with them as well, so I had to edit all of them and get them ready. I’m happy to say I actually finished the video the Friday before the Tuesday breakfast, which is not like me. I’m usually tweaking and still working on things down the very last moment. The video was done, but since Superintendent Bishop and myself wanted it to be a surprise, I only let her preview it. I was nervous that it wouldn’t be as funny as I thought it was. You can loose perspective when you are editing something for a long time. Her explosive laughter helped me feel better that this thing worked. So now it was just making sure no one saw it before the breakfast. I had other people wanting to see it before, but we stuck to our guns and kept it under wraps.
Doni: Wow, what an impressive process. I have watched this video a few times (OK, many times), and each time I notice new, wonderful details, like the woman riding the little trike around an empty track, and the coaches coaching non-existent players, and the weeping man at the piano.
And the man flipping the light switch on and off; he was so funny.
But perhaps one of my favorite parts was Principal Maresh reading to a workman.
Stephens Electric worker Bailey Overton just happened to be on school property when he agreed to participate for a few minutes in the video filming. He’s getting rave reviews!
I also loved the lip-syncing, not just with the song, but even the woman saying “I AM happy” — literally laugh-out-loud funny. So clever! Where did all those ideas come from, and we should assume that the actors were all Redding School District employees?
Seth: Yup, other than that gracious contractor, Bailey Overton, from Stephens Electric (shout out, man!), who we literally said to, “Hey, would you mind being in a video for like 5 minutes?” And the custodian Kyle at Cypress, who I bossed around for 5 minutes telling him to hold his ears like he was listening to something horrible coming out of the intercom.
Redding School District custodian Kyle Marshall.
All the other people in the video were principals and vice principals of our schools: Bonny View Elementary, Cypress, Juniper, Manzanita, Sequoia Middle School, Sycamore Elementary, Turtle Bay, Redding Achieve, Stellar Charter and our two partner districts, Shasta Elementary and Igo-Ono Elementary.
Along with my wife’s perfect song choice, I credit the admins’ — or I should say RADmins’ — willingness to just go for it and act their hearts out as to why the video worked so well. They all got into it and had a great time with it.
There are a lot of Easter eggs that people who don’t know these admins probably would never know that make these little segments just a tad funnier for us employees who know them. For instance, Kim Miller, Shasta Elementary’s principal, probably would never be caught dead riding a 3-wheel trike like that, so it’s funny to all of you, but it’s even funnier to all of us because we know and love Kim and know how much that was out of her comfort zone to do. Actually, Kim had fun riding that trike. I take it back.
Something I also tried to do was highlight something special about each campus. This, again, is something subtle that most viewers wouldn’t know, but those of us who know pick up on it, like John Moser, the principal at Sequoia Middle School, crying as he’s sitting in the empty music rooms.
Sequoia’s music rooms are beautiful and full of instruments, and it has a huge performing arts center, so having him sob in all these empty places which normally have kids playing music, or in that big Sequoia Gym engaging in sports, that’s a very Sequoia-centric thing, so that’s kind of the Easter egg behind each sequence.
I tried to highlight something special about each one of them, or their campus.
I agree, the reading to the worker was so funny we barely could record that scene because Principal Maresh and I kept laughing at how silly it was. I wish I knew the worker’s name, because he was so hilarious. He played it so straight and didn’t crack once. It was so funny.
Bonny View was a construction zone all summer, and when we were shooting those segments you would never imagine Bonny View would be ready for the first day of school. Principal Maresh was feeling it, and all the teachers were feeling it, so it made sense to have her read to a construction guy. The Bonny View teachers got that, and it made it that much more funny to all of us.
Doni: I can’t be the only one suggesting this video deserves an award. Is there a contest where you can enter it?
Seth: Haha, well, you are too kind to say that. We have had others say that, too. Having everyone enjoy the video so much has been rewarding enough at this point. Actually, the Sundial Film Festival is back for next year! Tyler Faires announced that at the ACID premier, and I was excited. I just submitted it to the festival.
Doni: Oh my gosh! That’s exciting.
So, what kinds of feedback and reactions have you received since this video’s release?
Seth: The feedback has been really great. The staff loved it when we played it at the McLaughlin Auditorium that Tuesday morning. I admit I was pretty nervous to show it, but everyone was so uplifted and happy after we played it. It felt like the staff really appreciated starting the new year that way, and really, the video just ended an already amazing back-to-school breakfast event that Superintendent Bishop had planned.
Immediately after the event I had scheduled it to be post online at 10 a.m. on August 13th, and I could tell right away from the comments on Facebook that people loved it. It has done like five times the views and comments than anything else we have ever put on social media, so I would say it’s been overwhelmingly positive. What I love about it that I’ve seen from comments is how the general public sees these staff members doing these crazy things; they don’t know them, and they don’t know who they are, but what comes across is their dedication to students. I think that’s a testament to these admins how much they really care about students. It comes across in their performances that although we made up silly scenarios, each of these admins is truly excited about school starting and seeing the kids again.
People sometimes forget that every admin was a teacher at one time, and they work in education because at their core they absolutely LOVE kids. These are the amazing people who help run our neighborhood schools, and to see the public react so positively has just been awesome.
Doni: Will students be able to see it?
Seth: Absolutely. I think most classes showed it on Day One to their students in classes, and the kids loved it. They all know their principals so well, so seeing them do this crazy music video, I think blew their minds. Principal Reaves from Juniper (the admin who was looking through her love notes from kids … btw those are real love notes, that’s her actual box she has kept for 28 years in education full of letters and cards of affirmation from kids) had a little 5th grader come up and tell her that he saw the video, and he wants to make a video about how the kids missed the teachers, and said he wants to show us when he’s done. You can bet we will be posting that if he does.
Doni: Keep us posted. We’d love to see it.
Seth, have you done other videos, and do you have others planned for the future?
Seth: Yes, I’ve been producing all types of videos for the Redding Elementary School District for quite a few years now. Last year, for the 2023-24 school year, I started making a lot more short-form content and small films, basically promoting our #untilallkidsread campaign.
Our district really believes in the right for every student to be able to read, and we have been focusing on children’s literacy as one of our main focuses. So I started making these — I guess you would call them commercials? — I’m not really sure what they are, but we just call them our #untilallkidsread videos.
You can see them all on our official Redding Elementary School District YouTube Channel. Like and Subscribe!!! https://www.youtube.com/@ReddingSD
I’m also proud of the documentary I created back in April that coincided with our 150th-year anniversary. That is a 30-minute documentary about our school district that I produced and created in collaboration with our prior Superintendent, Rob Adams. He had published a book on our history and I turned the book into a screenplay and made a documentary about it. You can watch that also on our main YouTube channel. It’s just a small slice of the History of Redding and how our district had grown along with the city throughout the last 150 years.
As far as more videos for the future, absolutely. I will be working on more #untilallkidsread videos this year, continuing to promote reading, more read-alouds (if you want to come do a read aloud with us, just hit me up), and anything fun that happens at our schools. Just follow us on socials https://rsd.link/social so you don’t miss out.
Doni: Thanks Seth. In the spirit of full transparency I should disclose that we’re already well acquainted as close neighbors, and you’re not just a talented director, but you and your family are all wonderful people, too. But I didn’t know you were the director of this video until I read the credits.
Seth: I guess it just never came up in our chit-chat in the neighborhood, haha. You’re a pretty great neighbor, too. To be fair, I didn’t know you ran a successful online news outlet for a really long time either — hahahah –you were just the new cool neighbor who moved across the street and fixed up that ol’ house and made our street look so much nicer!
Doni: Shucks, thank you!
Anything else you’d like us to know?
Seth: I think I just want to say this video was just a small glimpse into how amazing our administrators are at our public schools. These are truly dedicated individuals who care deeply about everyone’s kids, including my own. They are all amazing at what they do, and I really feel blessed to work alongside them. If you are a parent at any of our neighborhood schools, or just know a principal or vice principal, give them some love the next time you see them.
Also, like and subscribe — haha — and don’t forget to follow us on socials; you can find every social channel for all our school sites’ at our landing page
Doni: Thank you for stopping by, and I will check out your landing page. In the meantime, I’ll see you around the neighborhood.
