Hiring Committee Analyzes Communications Professor Candidate During Premiere Pro Demonstration 

University of New England, Biddeford ME – Dominic DePaulo, Communications professor applicant, presents an hour-long video editing workshop to seven hiring board members and an Introductory Journalism Class on Friday February 9th. 

DePaulo walks the audience through the steps to creating an advertisement through the popular video editing program known as Adobe Premiere Pro. Depending on the platform the ad is broadcasted, its runtime can be from fifteen to ninety seconds; DePaulo demonstrates the making of a thirty-second Hockey promotion clip. If DePaulo were to be running the class, he would bring students through the storyboarding, production, post-production, and publishing processes. The candidate demonstrates the program’s interface, illustrating how each portion is utilized, including the audio levels, effects, clips, graphics, and timeline panels. The cutting, splicing, and snapping elements can be tedious, but DePaulo brings an optimistic attitude toward his watchful audience. He provides copyright-free advice to the room when creating projects such as these; for visuals, he recommends Pexels, and for audio, the YouTube Sound Library includes, “Thousands of free songs and sound effects for your projects.” according to DePaulo.

He problem-solves with the spectators, helping them understand some of the unique tools in the program. While working with audio levels, he expresses the importance of sound quality. DePaulo remarks, “You don’t want red in your audio, as it will begin to distort the audio.” He then directs everyone how to add an audio-level line to avoid this issue. 

While Dominic is compiling and laying out the hockey clips, he discusses the importance of suspense. “You have control over what the viewer sees; you edit the narrative,” DePaulo states. 

A hand abruptly raises from a committee member. Oran Suta, the university’s Instructional Designer, Multimedia Medical Curriculum, Medical Illustrator, and Adjunct Professor of Design and Illustration, questions a gap in DePaulo’s advertisement. Until this point, the audience was silent, with no questions voiced, but with a single hand, the tension elevated. A simple mistake in the splicing of videos leaves a gap in DePaulo’s project, disrupting the flow of the advertisement. With a swift recovery, DePaulo rectifies this gap and continues through to the end of the lesson.