Spring 2016

International Studies Association (ISA) is comprised of more than 6,000 members from all over the world. Their members include professors, graduate and PhD. students, ambassadors, and practitioners who specialize in the realm of political science. Once a year, these members gather for a conference in a major city where they present their research, attend talks and panel discussions, and network with individuals who specialize in their respected fields.

Each year, ISA holds an international conference in a major city where they hold hundreds of panel, round-table, and paper discussions. ATION team ISA was challenged with the task of flying to Atlanta, Georgia to film the key elements of the conference.

Our team had a little over one month to prepare for our upcoming trip to Atlanta. Our main strategy was preparation; since we were the first group to venture out of UConn for a client project, we wanted everything to run as smoothly as possible since the conference only happens once a year. In that month, we comprised a list of all the equipment that we would be bringing with us, as well as a list of equipment that we would have to rent with ISA such as sandbags. We practiced setting up the filming equipment and filmed an event as a test for what our conference would be like. Lastly, we wrote a Preparation Document that detailed our backup plans in the event that something went wrong. We were so prepared, in fact, that our backup plan had a backup plan!

In Atlanta, we were hard at work gathering materials for ISA’s main deliverables. We conducted interviews of the moderators for their four key panel discussions, filmed TV Paul, the president of ISA’s speech about the 2017 conference in Baltimore, Maryland, recorded audio for the four key panel discussions and held impromptu interviews where conference-goers could tell us “Why I Go To ISA”. By the end of our trip, we had approximately 10.5 hours of video footage and used over 100 gigabytes of data!

We were able to present all five of our clients deliverables and then some with the intention that the fall 2016 ISA team would use the extra content for social media and website content.