International student recruitment through authentic stories

School video · Student stories

International recruitment · Social content

Rochester Independent College (RIC) wanted a collection of videos to support its growing international student recruitment.

The brief was not simply to interview students about the school. We wanted to show what it actually felt like to study there — from the classroom and boarding house to the town just outside the school.

A collection of videos for international recruitment

RIC already creates regular English-language content for its students and wider audience. This project had a more specific purpose.

The school was looking to recruit more students from the Asia-Pacific region and wanted content that could be used when speaking to prospective families, agents and students in international markets.

The main focus was Chinese-speaking audiences, so the students featured in this project spoke Mandarin throughout their films. The finished videos could then be used at fairs, during consultations and with agents, as well as on YouTube and social media.

The brief developed into five main films and seven shorter videos, featuring students across different parts of school life.

The subjects included art and creative learning, boarding, student life and transition, STEM, campus and town life.

Rochester is a small school, but that doesn't mean a small experience

RIC is “small”.

It isn't a huge traditional boarding-school campus with enormous grounds. The different amenities are spread around a collection of eclectic Georgian terraced townhouses and historic buildings and there is a strong connection between the school and the town.

But the small size also means something else.

People know each other. Teachers know their students. Xavier, their friendly Marketing and Admisisons Lead can almost greet every student by name.

There is also a lot of freedom in how students learn. Students can call teachers by their first names, there is no traditional school uniform, and teachers seem to spend a lot of time helping students work towards what they want to achieve rather than simply pushing everyone in the same direction.

Those things were much more interesting to me than simply filming a list of facilities.

Different students, different reasons for choosing Rochester

The students weren't there simply to provide different faces for the camera.

Each one had something different to say about the school.

Emily, from Shanghai, talked about Art and her experience of adapting to life at RIC — including the teaching, facilities and support she received.

Nicolo, a Chinese student, was particularly comfortable on camera and spoke about general student life and adapting to the school with fluent English.

Martha, a British student, gave a different perspective. Her film focused on STEM, her classroom experience and the advantages of smaller classes.

Lorenzo, Nicolo’s friend, who has a strong interest in photography and had received competition recognition during his time at RIC, talked about boarding. We also filmed a first-person-style tour of his room in the new Northbank boarding house.

And then there were Tenny and Victoria, both from China, who became the centre of the more playful campus and town film.

Emily · Nicolo
Martha · Lorenzo
Victoria & Tenny

Different students were chosen around the stories Rochester wanted to communicate — rather than trying to make every video say the same thing.

Getting students out of the chair

I didn't want the whole project to become six students sitting in front of a camera answering questions.

For the campus and town film, Xavier and I decided to let the students actually show RIC themselves.

We started by asking Tenny and Victoria which parts of the school they liked most. From there, we filmed them in those places — the sixth-form study hub, music room, gym and garden — before walking into Rochester itself.

There was no script for them to memorise.

I gave them some direction about what to say and how to say it on camera, but I wanted the conversation and their reactions to remain theirs.

That made the film much more lively than a standard campus tour.

Campus Tour Reel
Student-led video · Mandarin · Portrait

Showing where student life actually happens

For international parents, the school itself wasn't the only thing that mattered.

Rochester is closely connected to the town, and the college is only a short walk from the high street.

So the town became part of the story.

We filmed places such as Rochester Cathedral and other local landmarks, but also something much more ordinary — bubble tea 😍.

It was a small moment, but I liked it because it showed the students actually enjoying their time there rather than simply showing another tourist attraction.

Noting is better than having fun with students, and a cup of bubble tea during your work.

Showing STEM doesn't have to look like a science brochure

Martha's film gave us a completely different perspective.

She is a local British student and spoke about STEM, the benefit of smaller classes and the out-of-classroom experience.

I thought it was important to include her because Rochester isn't only recruiting Chinese students. The school has a broader international and local community, and that should be visible too.

We filmed her in the garden rather than putting her in another small classroom.

The garden gave us more space and a calmer background, although the outdoor environment also meant we had to work around some background noise.

The result felt quite different from the usual image people might have of Maths — a classroom, desks and a very serious-looking student.

Martha · STEM & Maths
Student interview · English · Landscape

WORKING WITH THE SCHOOL'S LOCATIONS

Sometimes the right location isn't obvious until you're there

RIC isn't one simple campus.

We moved between different parts of the school during the day, with plenty of walking, stairs and timetable changes.

Because the schedule was tight, I decided not to use artificial lighting for this shoot. Moving lighting equipment between different locations would have taken too much time, so I worked with the available natural and ambient light instead.

That meant I had to make more decisions on the spot.

An empty classroom might technically be available, but that doesn't automatically make it a good place for an interview.

If a classroom is small and visually plain, I would rather look for another part of the school that says something about the student or the subject.

For the campus tour, we often walked into a location, looked at it together and decided there and then what would work.

There wasn't much time to stop and think

The shoot ran from around 10:00am to 6pm, with six students involved and filming spread across different parts of the school and town.

Even with good planning from Xavier, each student only had a limited amount of time.

There is a lot happening in a school shoot that isn't visible in the finished film — finding a suitable place, checking the background, getting the student comfortable, checking the sound, filming the interview, then getting enough supporting footage before moving on.

Without lighting, I also had to be more careful about where I placed the camera and how I used the available light.

The main thing was not to let the timetable make the interviews feel rushed.

A conversation rather script reading

Xavier prepared the main questions and the students had some preparation beforehand.

Once filming started, I treated the interviews more as conversations than something they had to memorise.

Sometimes a student is nervous in front of a camera. Lorenzo was one example, so rather than asking him to look directly into the lens, I asked him to speak to Jian, the Chinese teacher who was sitting beside the camera.

It made the situation feel much more natural.

I also asked follow-up questions when I felt an answer needed more explanation or when there was something worth exploring further.

That matters because a good answer isn't always the first answer someone gives you.

Although Lorenzo was a bit camera shy, he still managed to talk naturally to the interviewer who sit next to the camera.

Five films, but much more footage

We filmed considerably more material than ended up in the final videos.

That's normal.

For each student, there were answers that were perfectly usable but didn't necessarily help the main point of that particular film. I had to make choices about what to leave out so that the finished videos stayed focused.

The necessary works were rearranging footage, trimming unclear sections and moving shots around so that each story flowed properly.

A school filming day produces much more footage than can go into the final film. The edit is where I decide what actually needs to stay.

Not everything needs to be polished out

There were also moments I deliberately kept because they felt like the students.

At the beginning of the campus and town video, Tenny and Victoria were talking about their favourite places one by one.

Some of the delivery wasn't perfectly polished.

Later, when they challenged each other about their favourite places, Tenny suddenly switched into English and Victoria laughed 🤣.

I kept those moments.

They were small, but they made the film feel like two students having fun rather than two people reading lines for a marketing video.

From one shoot to different types of content

The project was planned around longer films that could be used for outreach, fairs, consultations, agents and YouTube.

The shorter versions gave RIC something more immediate for social media.

That meant the same filming day had to produce material that worked at different lengths without simply chopping the long videos into pieces.

Main films
5 landscape videos · 1080p · bilingual subtitles

Short-form content
7 shorter videos for social use

Creating content that works for international families

The Mandarin interviews were important because RIC hoped their prospective Chinese students and parents to hear directly from students who had actually experienced the school.

That is different from the school simply explaining itself.

The majority contents in this project were produced in Mandarin, with bilingual English and Simplified Chinese subtitles.

At the same time, Nicolo and Martha's English-language film gave the project another perspective and could be used more broadly for local and international audiences.

It was a collection of school stories for different audiences.

Five main films. Seven shorter videos. One filming day.

The finished project gave RIC:

5 main landscape films
for outreach, fairs, agents, consultations and YouTube

7 shorter videos
for social media

Bilingual subtitles
in English and Simplified Chinese

The films covered different parts of the RIC experience — Arts, boarding, student life, STEM, campus and the town — rather than asking every student to tell the same story.

The content was designed to give prospective families something more useful than a list of facilities: a chance to hear from students and see where they actually spend their time.

  • “We've had the pleasure of working with Daniel at Dan Studio on numerous marketing video projects for Rochester Independent College, particularly supporting our student recruitment in the Hong Kong and wider Chinese-speaking markets.

    Daniel has produced a range of high-quality testimonial videos and promotional edits for us, and his professionalism, enthusiasm, and attention to detail have been outstanding throughout.”

    — Xavier, Rochester Independent College

A school already has a story

I had a really good time working with Rochester on this project. It was a busy day, with lots of people, locations and things happening, but that's actually what I enjoy about filming in schools.

I also enjoyed being able to help the admissions team from a different role. I've spent many years working on the marketing side of education, usually being the person briefing photographers and videographers. This time, I was the one behind the camera, working with the team to turn what they wanted to communicate into something they could actually use.

It was a different way of helping a school, and I really enjoyed it.

Have a school video project in mind?

Whether you need a main school film, student stories, short videos for social media or content for international recruitment, I can help you work out what would be useful for your school.

Get in touch: Via my contact form here to chat about your project

Email: xxxxxx

To see more: Head back to the school video page or find me on LinkedIn