Students Create Housing Day Hype With Videos

UPDATED: February 24, 2016, at 12:20 a.m.

From dancing on tables to compiling Snapchat stories, residents of the 12 undergraduate Houses are busy producing and marketing their Housing Day videos.

On March 10, the about 1,660 members of the freshman class will receive their randomized House placements. Each year, upperclassmen put together creative videos, often parodies of popular songs, to generate excitement for the eagerly awaiting freshmen.

Eliot House students celebrate Housing Day 2015. House Committees are preparing for Housing Day 2016 by creating promotional videos for their respective houses. By Jennifer Y Yao

Students can expect videos to be released as early as this week, though most of them will become public a week to ten days before Housing Day. Starting as early as last semester, House Committees began formulating ideas for this year’s rendition of the annual tradition.

“The first thing to get settled is the theme for the year. The real challenge is to find a theme that not only fits with the House, but one that comes from the House itself,” said Brittany L. Wang ’17, co-chair of the Quincy House Committee.

Before releasing the videos, the teams often drop hints to create enthusiasm and to claim a theme before another house does. Two weeks ago, Eliot House released a poster of the cover for the single, “Sorry” by Justin Bieber, with the words “It’s ours.” A teaser video released by Dunster House called “Dunster Wars” imitated the fashion of a Star Wars movie’s introduction.

House Committees held sessions in their open meetings where residents could pitch ideas for the video. Committee chairs noted the importance of collaboration in the video making process.

“The best resources are people, so the more people we can get involved, the better for the community and for the video in the end,” Larissa M. Rocha ’17, co-chair of the Eliot House Committee, said.

Collaboration is key for Quincy’s video this year, which is taking an unconventional approach to getting footage for the final product.

“We’re relying on a lot of Snapchat submissions from members of the house, because our theme is actually DJ Khaled’s Snapchat story,” Louis J. Colson ’18, a member of the video production team, said.

Beyond entertainment, the Housing Day videos also seek to inform undergraduates, especially freshmen, about the features of each house.

“I think the House video does a good job of highlighting what we as House members want to show the freshman and want to show the public,” Wang said. “So that includes our traditions, our House masters, who they are, and just certain things that we think are special to us.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: February 24, 2016

A previous version of this article misattributed a quote from Louis J. Colson ’18.