Not too long ago I had the amazing opportunity of interviewing Jazmin Bender. Jazmin is an Assistant Director of Creative Video at Northwestern University. She is one of two full-time videographers that create video content for the 19 teams at the university. Jazmin primarily works for Women’s Volleyball, Softball, and Women’s Basketball. This means during their seasons she works directly with the teams to cover games and any other events. That is not her only job though. Jazmin also works part-time with the NFL as a Live Content Correspondent. For this job, she helps cover different NFL teams that come to her city for games. More specifically she gets live video content that can be used on social media. She also covers player camps and events and for that she covers photo and video as needed.
Some previous jobs Jazmin had include: a Production Trainee at the Replay Center with the NBA. There she operated the continuous game for NBA League Pass, this included monitoring the game feeds and showing in-arena footage or highlights during commercial breaks, live logged games, and tagged archival footage. She also worked as the Social Content Specialist with Learfield at Indiana University. For this job, she worked with Sports Sponsorships to make and track sponsored content for the athletics department. She also worked as the corresponding Assistant Director of Video Services within the Cuban Center as the Primary Men’s Soccer Videographer.
Jazmin had always known that she wanted to work with creative video in some sort of capacity, but never knew specifically what that would be. In college most people around her wanted to work in Hollywood and on movie sets but that wasn’t something that resonated with her. During her time in college she had a work-study job in athletics. Here she started off in broadcast production. During her junior year Jazmin was asked to help edit content for social since there weren’t many games to work due to the pandemic. This is when she realized creative content was something she could have more of a role in and not just on the broadcast side. So, the boss she had at that time taught her how to film games and edit better videos and that’s when it became clear she could do this as a career.
With working in sports you of course have to have some passion for them. Jazmin played a lot of sports when she was younger and was surrounded by sports even as she got older. And since her dad was a big NBA fan she grew up going to and watching games with him.
In school, Jazmin majored in Cinema and Television Arts and Communication Design. She also worked on campus with Athletics, Admissions, Campus Recreation, and Internal Communications. She was also involved with a lifestyle magazine that she oversaw creative video for.
Other things outside of schooling that she did to help her career included freelancing both in and out of sports. This allowed Jazmin to further her skills with a camera and give her experience with freelance work.
Some skills Jazmin suggested that are good for working in this career are being open to learning and being able to trust the process. With so much going on behind the scenes it is also important to be able to have patience. It also helps to be teachable. With a lot of things in this career you will learn as you go and it will help you become better at what you do if you have the ability to learn from those around you.
Like any job there are always things that aren’t as favorable. Personally, Jazmin’s least favorite part of her job is the lack of work-life balance. It’s not fun to miss out on things and not be able to see family and friends as often as you’d like.
There are of course many good things about this job as well. Jazmin loves that every day is different and she doesn’t have to be stuck at a desk all the time. It is also fun to get to work with different programs and to get to cover different events.
A normal day in the life for Jazmin on home game days includes coming in 3-4 hours prior to the game starting so that she is available if anything comes up at the last minute that she might be needed for. She also has time to take care of last minute things or small tasks that she might need to catch up on. During this time she also meets with their network videographer if they are covering the game and any students need help to discuss game plans and coverage. Then she films the game and depending on the outcome, post-game can either require editing a quick video for social, organizing clips, or just uploading everything to the server to log the next day. On away game days normally there is a practice in the morning and then they hang out at the hotel for a little bit before heading back to the game site. Once back on site, Jazmin will start game coverage. After the games work just about the same as home games except they also travel back so she quickly gets stuff to social before they head out.
A few tips that Jazmin has for women wanting to go into this field “My biggest thing is just having the right mindset. Lots of times it’s hard being the only female in some spaces or having feelings that I’m not good enough. I’ve really tried to hold the 'Fake it until you make it' mindset. It’s helped me have the confidence to apply for different roles and opportunities, that on the outside I wouldn’t have thought I would be qualified for. Women belong in all places that sports are being played. Never forget that you deserve to be in every room you walk into. Keep pushing and never stop showing up.”
Jazmin is an inspiration to young girls who doubt their abilities to succeed in the world of sports, and I am so glad to be able to share her story.
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