"Director, Photography and Videography"

Director, Photography and Videography

Job ID: 292478
Location: Kennesaw, Georgia
Full/Part Time: Full Time
Regular/Temporary: Regular

About Us

Are you ready to transform lives through academic excellence, innovative research, strong community partnerships and economic opportunity? Kennesaw State University is one of the 50 largest public institutions in the country. With growing enrollment and global reach, we continue to expand our institutional influence and prominence beyond the state of Georgia. We offer more than 190 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees to empower our 47,000 students to become thought leaders, lifelong learners, and informed global citizens. Our entrepreneurial spirit, high-impact research, and Division I athletics draw students from throughout the region and from more than 100 countries across the globe. Our university's vibrant culture, career opportunities, rich benefits, and values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity, and accountability make us an employer of choice. We are part of the University System of Georgia. We are searching for talented people to join Kennesaw State University in our vision. Come Take Flight at KSU!

Location

(Primary Location for Job Responsibilities) Our Kennesaw campus is located at 1000 Chastain Road NW, Kennesaw, GA 30144.
Our Marietta campus is located at 1100 South Marietta Parkway, Marietta, GA 30060.

Job Summary

Responsible for the photo and video team of The Office Strategic Communications and Marketing. Serves as a key storyteller, visual architect, and strategic thinker, guiding this team to create high-quality photography and multimedia productions. Works with campus constituents to amplify the university's brand and develop new content, cull existing content, educate, train, and support other campus departments that also create video and photo assets, and lean on StratComm's Digital Asset Library systems. Sets the strategy and standard of visual style to be adhered to university-wide, across a variety of distribution channels, while driving the team's creative process from concept to execution.

Responsibilities

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Manages the teams of staff videographers and photographers, as well as student assistants
2. Provides creative oversight to the teams, ensuring the creative consistently reflects and elevates the university's brand identity and messaging
3. Oversees all levels of media creation and quality control
4. Collaborates with stakeholders to develop concepts that reflect brand identity and messaging, translating marketing goals into compelling stories and images
5. Supports the video team as they script, pitch, storyboard, shoot, and work their way through post-production
6. Manages photography strategy, including production and editing content, for numerous distribution channels and collateral needs
7. Coordinates with marketing, design, and content teams to integrate photography and videography into broader creative strategies
8. Collaborates with a variety of divisions across the University (e.g., the President's office, the Provost's office, Advancement & Alumni initiatives, Athletics, etc.), as well as the marketing and communications teams for the colleges
9. Coaches staff through the creative process from concept to delivery
10. Balances the workload of the team across timelines along with Project Management,
11. Works closely with the DAM team to maintain assets and related workflows to ensure long term usability of digital material
12. Oversees cost-effective strategies and maintenance of the video media management workflow process and equipment.
13. Develops guidelines and visual standards and engages in ongoing benchmarking of best practices to ensure strong, state-of-the-art services and creative outcomes
14. Creates photography and video content guidelines across all aspects of the production process
15. Helps identify more efficient, innovative, and creative processes for content creation
16. Ensures projects are completed on time, within budget, and at the highest creative standard
17. Keeps current on industry trends in media, software, and camera formats

Required Qualifications

Educational Requirements
Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution of higher education in Production (video or photo), Communications, Journalism, Marketing, or a related field.

Other Required Qualifications
Current, valid, and unrestricted driver's license

Required Experience
Seven (7) years of experience in photography and multimedia, photography management, and digital asset management

Preferred Qualifications

Additional Preferred Qualifications
Part 107 FAA-certified UAS drone pilot

Preferred Educational Qualifications
Advanced degree from an accredited institution of higher education in a related field

Preferred Experience
Experience with Adobe Suite (e.g., Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro)
Prior experience with planning and execution of visual content.
Experience with maintaining a Digital Asset Library/Management system
Experience leading creative ideation and concept development processes
Working knowledge of Asana or similar systems for project management

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

ABILITIES
Ability to translate abstract ideas into clear visual narratives with emotional, aesthetic impact
Organized and detail-oriented with ability to multi-task and troubleshoot
Ability to forecast needs for software and equipment updates and changes
Ability to prioritize, organize, and implement projects

KNOWLEDGE
knowledge of Asana or similar systems for project management
Deep understanding of visual storytelling, color theory, composition, and cinematic techniques, and ability to envision a project, from beginning to end
Expert proficiency with professional cameras, lighting, accessories, and photography trends
Thorough, up-to-date understanding of file formats, resolution, and delivery systems
Proficient in directing crews, managing shoots, and working under tight deadlines
Familiarity with post-production workflows and editing software (e.g., Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, etc.)
Expert proficiency with professional level digital cameras, lighting, accessories and photography trends
Expert proficiency in photographing in the studio and on location
Analytical and creative
Knowledge of and experience with digital asset management systems, hosted or cloud-based, including best practices for users

SKILLS
Excellent communication, collaboration, management, leadership skills, and concepting / writing skills.
Exemplary customer service skills, including phone and email etiquette
Excellent leadership, coaching, and teaching skills, providing inspiration to the team to deliver exceptional creative outcomes
Excellent project management skills

Other Information
This is a supervisory position.
This position does not have any financial responsibilities.
This position will be required to drive.
This role is considered a position of trust.
This position does not require a purchasing card (P-Card).
This position may travel 1% - 24% of the time
This position does not require security clearance.