Notes from the camera.
Longform essays and working case studies on video, storytelling, and school marketing — written between shoots by Jeremy Scherer and the Parallel 40 team.
The quieter play — retention.
Enrollment gets all the attention. The number that actually determines whether your school grows is the one nobody talks about. How video keeps families and staff believing in what they're building.
Read noteViews and subs are the wrong number.
The count at the top of your video dashboard isn't the metric that matters. What to measure instead — and why quantity of eyeballs almost never predicts whether your content is doing any real work.
Read noteWhat the heck is a Meta Pixel?
Breaking down the tiny piece of code that quietly gives you insight into everything — what it is, what it sees, and why your marketing vendor probably hasn't explained it.
Read noteVideo production is not video marketing.
And you can't have one without the other. Where production ends, where marketing begins, and why most clients end up paying for half the job without realizing it.
Read noteHow charter schools use video to grow enrollment.
Three videos every charter should own, where they belong in the enrollment funnel, and the reason most school marketing videos never move the one number that actually matters.
Read noteWhat makes a school brand film actually work.
The one-story principle, why runtime is a feature rather than a constraint, and what a seasoned enrollment director is quietly looking for in the first fifteen seconds of a cut.
Read noteBehind the camera at Otay Ranch Academy for the Arts.
Shooting a program spotlight for Springs Charter Schools — the three decisions that shaped the final cut and what the piece actually did for enrollment outreach.
Read note