A team of junior digital design students recently took home fourth place at a Business Professionals of America national competition, and the group now has its sights set on placing in the top three next year.
Chris Skomra, Gibson Davis, Cyrus Adkins, and Avery Latta explained Thursday that for the video competition, they were given a theme and rubric to create a video.
“For the competition, we had to make a video in a certain amount of time,” Skomra said. “We got a rubric at the very beginning of the school year that told us the requirements from the video, and what it had to include. We also had to figure out a way to present the theme they handed us, which was the benefits of sleep for teens.”
Davis, an Olentangy Liberty student, said they spent four to five months creating the video before the regional competition, and he added after each competition they would refine the video based on the judge’s feedback.
Skomra, a home-schooled student, said the team didn’t really know each other at the beginning of the year until they were picked for the BPA team.
“At the very beginning of the school year, we did a project for the Ohio School Board Association. There were 12 students, and from that group, we picked out BPA team,” Skomra said. “That was the start of our BPA journey.”
Davis said all of the students on the team has a different area of focus and did different jobs during the project. Davis said he served as the director in the production, while Skomra did the camera work and technical management. Davis added Adkins did the music and sound, while Latta did the editing for the video.
“We all got to learn from each other throughout the project since we all have our own personality types,” Latta, a Delaware Hayes student, said. “We have our own different strengths, and we got to learn from each other and expand and broaden our horizons as creators.”
Skomra said that at the beginning of the year, the team took a Myers-Briggs personality test, and the strength of their team comes from the fact that they have one of each personality.
“There are four different types, and we have one of each. That’s what makes us a well-oiled machine,” Skomra said. “At the beginning, everyone was kind of like ‘well, we’ll see what happens,’ but as it went on, we all found a love for the field and a love for each other, which is part of the reason we are looking to do this again next year.”
Davis said the team’s goal originally was just to get to nationals and considers this year a win, but he added the team has been looking to improve and sharpen its skills before the next competition.
“I personally don’t care if we make it to a higher place in the long run. What I care about is topping ourselves,” Davis said.
Adkins, an Olentangy Liberty student, said the DACC is a “creative zenith,” and he’s so thankful for the opportunities and education. He said that his family was very supportive, adding, “I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Latta added that the video production field is very much about connections, which these competitions have allowed students to make.
