Video & Photography

Video Policies & Guidelines

• Videos must comply with The New School’s legal policies. The work must be your own work, be owned or licensed to the university, or document an original aspect of our university. If it is student work, we must have the student's written permission to use the work for promotional purposes. (Release forms are linked in the relevant section, below.)
• If you are adding music, footage, or other materials to your video, you must confirm you have the rights to use those materials. The fact that your content was produced for a not-for-profit university does not mean that it falls within fair use. Fair use is a policy that can be determined only by a judge in a court of law, and applies to music and video footage that is used in promotional or social media videos.
• Videos must be of reasonable audio and video quality. Audio must be clear enough to be heard and understood by an average viewer without difficulty. Video must be sufficiently focused and bright and the camera work must be steady enough for the average viewer to follow.

ADA-Compliant Video Captions

Videos must be ADA compliant and follow all the university requirements outlined below.

• Videos published to newschool.edu must have 99-percent-accurate closed captioning for hearing-impaired and hard-of-hearing people. This means that the auto-captions provided by the above mentioned services are not sufficient to meet the 99 percent threshold. Federal accessibility laws and international standards for Web accessibility require closed captions that are word-to-word synchronized and have a minimum of 99 percent accuracy—even in cases of poor audio quality, multiple speakers, difficult content, and accents.
• M&C similarly requires closed captions for videos produced by schools or departments that are to be published on any of our affiliated webpages. M&C provides guidelines but not inspection or enforcement.
• Live captioning is acceptable for online events, but full captions must be commissioned before the video is published to YouTube or newschool.edu. Neither human live captions nor machine live captions will meet the ADA 99-percent-accuracy requirement.
• For video on social media, such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, we recommend hard-coding captions so that they are visible in Autoplay, even when the sound is turned off. On platforms that auto-generate captions, such as TikTok, please enable and check the captions for accuracy before posting. (Please note that videos captioned through TikTok and then downloaded may not retain their captions.)
• Videos published on newschool.edu and university-affiliated websites must also provide audio descriptions for visually impaired people. Audio description is an audio track that narrates the relevant visual information in media. Audio description assumes that the viewer cannot see and depicts the visual elements necessary for understanding the content as an accommodation for visually impaired users.

Video and Caption Providers

Note that the cost of videography and captions is the responsibility of the commissioning school or department, unless coordinated in advance with the Digital Content and Engagement team.

• Vendor list: Approved and insured photographers and videographers
• Caption Providers and Information Guide

Video Graphics

For branded video graphics that you can use in videos, see the folder and tutorial below.

• Video graphics: Folder
• Tutorial for Opening Slates, Closing Slates, and After Effects Templates: Video

For more information regarding Digital Content’s video and asset pipelines, please see the Video Systems Brief.

Digital Asset Library

We have an extensive selection of photos in the Digital Asset Library (DAL) available to those looking for university photography.

• Access the DAL
• DAL FAQS
• Video Tutorials on Using the DAL
• DAL Content Criteria

Those without access to the DAL can request photo assets by completing and submitting the DAL Submission & Request Form. If M&C has the assets, we will happily collect them and share them with you for your project.

Hire a Photographer

To hire a photographer for an event or create promotional materials, follow the procedures described in this brief guide by the Digital Content team. Before hiring a photographer, confirm that they are approved to shoot on campus and are following all required safety measures.

Requesting Internal Photoshoot: 

1. Place a request through the Digital Content/Engagement Support Request Form. Please make the request at least two weeks and preferably one month before the suggested shoot date. 

2. DC will assess the photo request to determine whether it aligns with university marketing initiatives and whether the team has the capacity to complete the project.

   
   
3. If they don’t, they will suggest outside vendors. If they do, they will send a call sheet form to be filled out and set up a preproduction call with a project manager if necessary.

You must also ensure you have all necessary releases, linked below in the Release Forms section.

• Approved and insured photographers and videographers
• Handbook for photographers

At The New School, we respect the work of other artists and creatives and do not use their material without proper attribution and licensing. All content—whether photo, video, graphic, or written—must comply with legal policies of The New School. 

Before uploading content anywhere it can be publicly viewable, remember that many platforms scan content automatically for copyrighted material. The platform may red-flag the post, add advertising, or remove content if any infringement is detected. Penalties could also include legal action against the university or termination of the account. 

To avoid these possibilities, please work with the faculty, students, event coordinators, and/or production companies that are producing your content to make sure that all third-party materials are properly licensed. Be especially careful with performances that include music or video not owned by the university itself or shared with us by a student or faculty member who has provided the appropriate release. 

The following are catalogs you can refer to for royalty-free music. You still need to make sure that what you intend to do with your chosen track is allowed under the terms of that particular song’s license. For example, some pieces of music cannot be used for paid advertising but are approved for organic posting on social media platforms.

• Royalty Free Music—YouTube (YouTube user account needed)
• Creative Commons Music
• ccmixter.org

• Editing Event Videos: Tutorial
• Live Streaming on Social Media: Recommendations & Best Practices
• Opening/Closing Slates, Templates, and Tutorial: Folder

• Best Practices: Signing, Labeling, and Storage
• Photography and Video Appearance Release for Promotion and Advertising Use
  • Permission to use student work is covered in this form.
• Crowd Release
• Location Release