Tuesday, February 3, IWU students have the opportunity to preview the university’s episode on Amazon’s “The College Tour.”
“College Tour is such an amazing opportunity for colleges to show what they’re all about,” Annie Seboe, IWU’s digital content manager, said.
The watch party will begin at 7:00pm in the Globe Theater.
“Something really special is that they made, at least in my mind, they made IWU feel like they were rooting for us,” Seboe said, “Just in the way they embraced our Christ centeredness.”
Spanning 15 seasons, “The College Tour” highlights college campuses worldwide with a focus on students.
“I saw it first on the official Indwes Instagram account, and didn’t really know what the show was. Thought it was cool, swiped past it, but actually got contacted by a couple of different people that sent me the link to apply over Instagram DM and over email,” Jamie Bryant said.
Bryant, a senior at IWU, is one of five students featured in the episode.
Starting back in July of last year, IWU announced the partnership with Amazon along with applications to be in the episode.
“And so with enough convincing from a couple of people, that’s how I actually submitted an application,” Bryant said.
Preparing for the four day shoot, “The College Tour” team met with IWU’s marketing department and the selected students over zoom.
“Our department was step by step with College Tour along the way. They did a really great job of making sure that we as the client felt confident about the final product, even down to the littlest detail,” Seboe said, “We were part of cast selection, we were part of making scripts and finalizing those, choosing locations to film. And then also throughout the editing process, we have had hands on the entire episode, and our department is really happy with how it turned out.”
Pam Downing, director of communications, played a direct role in coordination from the start, including cast selection.
“Our students are incredible, and we had too many good options,” Downing said.
Broken down into five main sections, the episode looks at different aspects of IWU. Choosing the cast, the team considered which students would best match the different topics.
“Mine was on campus community and belonging,” Bryant said, “And so I just talked a lot about the things that I’m involved in that make me feel a part of the campus community, and feel like I belong.”
Playing an active role, the chosen students wrote their own scripts before approval.
“They just walked me through all the different steps of the process, from approvals to what it takes to write your own script, and then walking me through what the actual filming day would look like when they came to campus,” Bryant said.
In addition to smoother filming, the near month of preparations helped offset challenges once “The College Tour” team arrived. Fabrizzio Sandoval-Salinas was selected as a last minute back up after one student was unable to shoot.
“That was a very, very busy last part of the project, but it was great. And Fabrizzio is fantastic. It was fun to work with him, and he was so gracious to step in and fill that spot,” Downing said.
Continuing after the shoot, IWU marketing continued to work with “The College Tour” to edit and communicate creative vision.
“My hope for our College Tour episode for IWU is that it will extend an invitation to say, ‘come and see.’ We are Christ centered. We are focused on biblical truth and how that informs our academic experience, but also our community experience,” Downing said.
The preview of The College Tour will begin with a Q&A session with the five students.
“I think it’s really cool with it being my last year on campus as a college student, to have a physical piece of media that I can literally just get on Amazon Prime from any device and be able to watch. And so it is a really special kind of keepsake,” Bryant said.
The full 25-minute episode will release in June later this year on Amazon Prime.
