7–11 Aug 2017
Columbus, Ohio, USA
US/Eastern timezone

Short promotional videos

We want to give graduate students and postdocs as much exposure as possible.  One way we will do this is by playing short video descriptions of their talks for all participants to see, before the start of the morning plenary sessions and during the morning coffee break.  Details follow.

Graduate students and postdocs who are interested in advertising their talks should send us a video blurb (instructions are below).  The content should be a short description of their talk.  The goal of the video is to convince people to go to your talk.  The duration must be between 1 and 2 minutes (we will crop longer videos).  Videos will be projected in a loop every morning, from ~8:45 to 9:00 a.m., and during coffee breaks, on the 16 ft x 9 ft screen at the Davidson Theatre. 

The three best videos --- to be decided by the TeVPA LOC --- will be awarded a money prize.  Clarity, conciseness, and creativity will be assessed. 

Alternatively, you can send a one-slide (pdf or ppt) summary of your talk, including your picture, and we will also run it as part of the loop.  However, these submissions will not compete for the award.

Video tips:

  • The video could just be of you describing your talk --- perhaps using visual aids like a blackboard or a printed plot --- or you could use video editing to include plots and animations with voice-over
  • High production value is not required; a simple video recorded with a webcam or (steadied) cell phone will suffice.  However, we ask you to record the video in a quiet environment so the audio is clear (a direct audio feed is preferred, but not necessary).
  • Please include your name, talk title, abstract number, and the day and time of your talk in a title screen at the beginning and end of your video (you can add these title screens with video-editing software, or simply hold up a piece of paper with the information written on it).  If you have access to video editing, you can also add a footer (akin to a news ticket) with that information that is present throughout the video.
  • We give you total creative freedom, and we mean it.  If you have a truly creative video we will show it between two plenaries for all the audience to enjoy. 
  • Here are a few video blurbs from the Ohio State Astronomy students about their papers.  The videos are a bit longer, but you get the idea.


Submission instructions: To send us your video, please upload the file to Dropbox, Google Drive, Sendspace, or similar services, and send us a download link.  Standard video formats are accepted (avi, mpeg, mp4, mkv, wmv).

Submission deadline: Friday, August 4th, 23:59

After the conference, we will make the videos available on Youtube.