Storytelling and Documentary Project Assistant

Status: Hiring now

Structure: Paid project, fall semester. Early October to Thanksgiving, about 6 hours a week on average. The first session is a paid trial.

Pay: $30 an hour, up to 60 hours this fall.

Ongoing opportunity: If the project continues past November, a spring option, decided in November

Location: Madison, Wisconsin. The recording is in person. The cutting and the notes can be done anywhere.

Majors: Journalism, communication arts, film and digital cinema, and anyone else with the work to show. No computer science required.

Works with: The founder and the teammate who runs our marketing and business development

Gear: Bring your own camera or a recent iPhone.

About the project

WiscAI builds practical AI systems for real organizations in Wisconsin: manufacturers, universities, credit unions, athletic departments. This fall we are recording what actually happens inside an organization when AI arrives. The people, the arguments, the moment something works or does not. We need one student to record it and help us see the story in it.

The stories underneath that work are the point. How AI is changing actual jobs. What leaders get wrong about it. Why entry-level employees use these tools differently than experienced ones. What happens when AI moves from a demonstration into a working business. What a company is learning along the way.

We set the direction. We pick the stories, the sessions, and what we are trying to show. You bring two things we do not have. You know how to handle a camera and a microphone in a room full of people at work. And you have a journalist’s sense of how to bring a story to life: who to follow, what to ask next, where the real moment is.

The material becomes short pieces for LinkedIn and video, and one rough episode by mid-November. The client is the hero of every piece. Nothing we make should feel like a commercial.

You will not be easing in

Your first session is Tuesday, October 6, at the builders’ group we host at StartingBlock every Tuesday, and it is a paid trial for both of us. By the end of that week we have your first clips, and you know whether you want the rest of the fall.

What you will do

• Record at the sessions we schedule. This fall those may include the Tuesday builders’ group at StartingBlock, the founder at work, client work (only with everyone’s signed consent), and the events we host for Madison business leaders.
• Run the room quietly. Read the ground rules at the start, keep anyone off camera who wants to be, and notice when a human story is developing.
• Within five days of each session, hand back the raw footage in the shared folder, a transcript, three to five captioned clips of 30 to 90 seconds, ten stills, and one page of notes on what surprised you.
• Help us see the story. Tell us what is interesting and what is not. Suggest the angle, the person to follow, the question to ask next time.
• Sit in on story planning with our team, and research the ideas we hand you: what makes this matter to someone outside WiscAI?
• Help turn what we record into story ideas for the press: who covers this, and what would make them care. The notes to journalists go out from the founder.
• By mid-November, cut a rough first episode of 8 to 12 minutes.
• Watch what each published piece does: the views, the comments, the conversation it starts.

What you will learn

Teaching you is part of the deal.

• How to tell the difference between a company announcement and an actual story.
• How to walk into a room of people who did not ask to be filmed and leave with their trust and the footage.
• How to interview an executive, a builder, or a client and turn the conversation into a usable angle.
• How a piece gets cut so that a viewer with no stake in the company keeps watching.
• How a small company becomes a credible source rather than someone asking for publicity.
• How reporters and editors decide what is a story, seen from the other side of their inbox.
• How AI is actually being put to work inside working organizations, which looks nothing like the headlines.

You will finish with real work you can point to: pieces published under our name with your credit, a rough episode, and the right to use excerpts in your portfolio after the client’s review and our yes.

What we are looking for

The work you have already shot matters more here than your major or your year.

• You have shot and cut pieces where a real person’s story develops on camera. Two or three of those tell us more than gear or follower counts.
• You are curious enough to keep asking questions after you get the obvious answer.
• You can tell when something is genuinely interesting and when a company simply thinks it is. You will tell us when you do not think something is a story.
• You are comfortable saying “I am a student doing a project, is it all right if I record this?” and meaning it.
• You are unassuming in a room and good at listening.
• You write clearly and without jargon. Captions, transcripts, and a page of notes are part of every session.
• You follow business, technology, media, or the changing world of work.
• You deliver on a deadline without being chased. Five days after a session means five days.
• You use AI tools thoughtfully, without handing them your judgment.

Who this fits best: a junior, senior, graduate student, or recent graduate with room for two half-days a week this fall. No technical background is required.

The pace

Two half-days a week at the sessions, and the sessions move with the work. Tuesdays are likely. Everything from a session is due within five days. If your fall schedule looks tight, say so and we will look at it together before either of us commits.

How to apply

Email hello@wiscai.com with the subject Storytelling and Documentary Project Assistant.

Tell us who you are and why this interests you. Then send links to two or three pieces you shot where a real person’s story develops on camera. Those samples are what we most want to see.

Anything below is optional, and any of it helps us see how you work.

• A few lines on how you would walk into a room of people who did not ask to be filmed.
• One story you have seen on campus or at work that you think is worth telling, and why.
• Your fall schedule.

A resume is welcome but not required, and we are not asking for a cover letter. If you apply through Handshake instead, we still need the email with your links; Handshake cannot hold them.

We read applications as they arrive. First conversations are the week of September 28, we decide by Thursday, October 1, and the paid trial session is Tuesday, October 6. If you are interested but not sure you qualify, write to us anyway and say what you are unsure about.