The making of a holiday video card
by Prufer
Nyoka Hucks was driving to church on a recent Sunday when a shiny, teal-colored, old model pickup truck passed her. She knew she had to have that truck for the upcoming holiday video filming at Coastal Carolina University.
“It was a tough decision,” recalls Hucks, who is administrative specialist in the College of Science. “It was, do I make it to church on time, or do I follow that truck?”
She followed the teal truck, pulled it over at a stop sign and asked the driver to bring the truck to campus for the Nov. 12 video. Unfortunately, the man worked out of town and couldn’t make it. Hucks did, however, make it to church on time despite her detour on CCU’s behalf.
So, Jennifer Sellers, campus sustainability coordinator and self-proclaimed “queen of resource randomness” found a friend whose dad had a 1952 Chevy 3100 truck he agreed to loan CCU for the video card. The forest green truck, adorned with festive garlands, was the gathering place for the holiday food drive called Setting the Table for Thanksgiving, sponsored by student activities and civic engagement. By day’s end, the donations were spilling out of the truck’s bed onto Prince Lawn, enough to feed 67 families, providing Thanksgiving dinners to more than 250 individuals in Conway. Jordan Smith, coordinator of the drive, reports that food was delivered to EME Apartments, a subsidized housing complex in Conway, and to families designated by Catholic Charities of the Pee Dee.
It was all part of the daylong filming of Coastal’s third annual holiday video card, shot and filmed by Media Services with lots of help from many people, offices and departments.
Hucks, the lady on a mission for a teal truck, colored 32 pounds of frosting for the cookie-decorating table sponsored by the College of Science, which ended up on 500 decorated cookies.
But that's not all. Some 1,100 cups of hot chocolate were consumed, along with 300 cups of coffee (morning only), 600 doughnut holes and 600 pre-decorated cookies.
Kimbel Library encouraged the Coastal community to pen letters to soldiers. There were 99 requests for letters and, by incredible happenstance, exactly 99 cards were penned that day.
The College of Humanities ran a Photo Booth (Elf-a-Gram) with festive props and a pipe-and-drape backdrop, and the Wall College of Business had a craft table where students, faculty and staff could make ornaments and holiday stockings.
But the main attraction was the signing of the card and the filming of faculty, staff and student individuals and groups sharing greetings of the season. Three dogs joined in the fun, along with their people, some wearing red and green scarves, hats, ears and antlers.
“We have no pens!” came a cry from the card-making table.
“Don’t edit us out,” one group pleaded, explaining how difficult it is to gather people together for a brief camera cameo. “We had to miss meetings for this!”
Toward the end of the long, sunny day, professor Ben Sota’s physical theatre class arrived as a group of clowns wearing red noses. The assignment seemed to be that they had to be touching each other and could only move as a group, so they seamlessly moved from table to table, decorating cookies and adding a “cool element” as the day winded down, according to videographer David Russell.
Hours and hours of footage on six different cameras makes for some editing challenges with 120 holiday greetings, Russell admits, but the card is bound to be something memorable for all.
