Throughout the United States and around the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has impacted everyone on various levels.
When it comes specifically to the workforce, some individuals around the country have experienced unemployment due to COVID-19 while others have continued to work in alternate modes.
For at least two St. Cloud State University alumni, they have been able to continue to work from home while even being presented with a unique opportunity to do something within their career field they never really thought would happen.
SCSU mass communications graduates Ben Pluimer ’04 and Mike Oliver ’04 both recently played prominent roles as producer and editor, respectively, in a nationwide virtual town hall production tailored towards children in March.
Pluimer and Oliver helped create a one-hour special called “#KidsTogether” for Nickelodeon, which provided kids, parents and caregivers advice on ways to support each other with information and talking-points during the pandemic.
The town hall, which was hosted by actress Kristen Bell and featured celebrities such as John Cena, Alicia Keys, Ellen DeGeneres, Kenan Thompson and others, offered an inside look at what families all over the United States are doing during this time and directly addressed kids’ questions and concerns surrounding COVID-19 with insight from medical experts.
Click here to view a replay of the #KidsTogether production
“At the time, a lot of kids didn’t know what COVID was and all the news was scaring everybody. I thought this could be cool to teach the kids and make something fun. There was nobody out there explaining this to kids,” Oliver said. “Everybody was in the same boat in doing this for the kids.
“This was one of those shows that probably is something people will remember because of COVID and being a part of history to some extent.”
“We built this from the ground up”
After graduating from St. Cloud State in 2004, Pluimer and Oliver both moved out to Los Angeles to begin their careers.
Pluimer is an Emmy Nominated TV and commercial director who has directed items for companies such as Amazon, Ford, Hot Wheels, 20th Century Fox, Comedy Central, WWE, Taco Bell, Snapchat, Uber and others. With this production for Nickelodeon, he was a lead producer who oversaw the overall execution of the town hall.
“I was one of the main producers for this show, doing everything and anything, really,” Pluimer said. “I was testing software that we could shoot remotely with, helping celebrities set up their webcams and making sure their audio was good. I was helping oversee everything from pre-production to post-production.”
Mike Oliver ’04 while editing the opening segment of the United States women’s national soccer team’s game in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Oliver is a four-time Emmy Award winner, doing freelance work as both a producer and editor. He has worked on projects for companies such as Fox Sports, HBO, ESPN, ABC, NBC and others. Oliver was sought out by Pluimer to serve as a segment editor for the Nickelodeon production.
“This was something totally different for me. I’m mainly a sports person and I only work in the sports industry. But me and Ben, since we both went to St. Cloud and are good friends, he told me about this Nickelodeon show while asking me if I wanted to help with it. At first, I didn’t really know what was going on because this was really the first time anyone has ever done this.”
Together, the two helped put together the one-hour town hall for Nickelodeon which contained over three dozen celebrities and others making appearances during the production.
A production with multiple interviews and many guests appearing throughout is tough enough to conduct, but there was another aspect to this production that made it even more challenging. The entire production crew worked on the town hall from remote locations while working from home like many others throughout the country.
“At one point, we had 12 editors spread all around Los Angeles and we had some in New York. We had a crew of about 30 people all working from their own homes,” Pluimer said. “TV productions like this had not been done before. Usually you can get everybody in one room.”
As a producer, Pluimer and others on the production crew put in some long hours in order to turn this virtual show around on a tight schedule with information surrounding COVID-19 changing by the day. But in the end, they were able to accomplish something that not many people have been able to before.
“It was a tight turnaround. We shot it on a Wednesday and had to edit it by Saturday so it was ready for air that Monday. I had several 20-hour-long days to make sure everything was going smooth and getting it ready for TV,” he said. “At this point now, most networks are doing virtual shows. I can’t say we were the first, but I’m pretty sure we were one of the first to figure this out and get something on TV. We built this from the ground up, this virtual production with virtual editing with no centralized production space.”
For Oliver, editing was more difficult than he was used to. While often working with producers in the same room when editing various segments of a production, that wasn’t the case this time. Oliver and others editors had to rely on virtual meetings to walk producers through their segments of the show.
“I was trying to edit around some things, but you also wanted to allow it to have the feeling of we are doing this from home. We were learning as the people on the show were learning,” Oliver said. “You just have to try and figure out ways to adapt to it. This was the first time for me doing something like this. It was quite an adjustment.”
While making sure the show was both informational and entertaining to audiences around the country involving an important topic, Pluimer and Oliver were proud with how the production turned out in the end. They both credited their experiences in the mass communications program at St. Cloud State for helping them learn early on how to teach themselves and learn as they go with a new challenge lying ahead.
Ben Pluimer ’04 sitting down with NFL quarterback Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks.
“In this field, you often have to build something and create something from the ground up. The best thing with SCSU was it gave us the opportunity and experience to invent some new things and learn how to do it,” Pluimer said. “When you have that environment, it teaches you to be a self-starter and that is really important in the TV business. Knowing how to start from nothing and take it all the way through to a finished product, we were able to do that so many times at SCSU. That’s so valuable.”
Like many others throughout the country, COVID-19 and the challenges it has brought into the workplace has also hit Pluimer and Oliver in Los Angeles. And this new reality we are living through presented them with the opportunity to experience something they certainly won’t ever forget being a part of.
“In the end, we struck a really good tone that got good information out there for both kids and parents, and it was a fun watch,” Pluimer said. “That’s a really hard thing to do, especially since we had just one chance to shoot it, edit it and get it out there into the world.
“It was cool because we had people all over the country coming together for this one little thing. I’m really proud of the show and how it turned out.”
