Storytelling and Documentary Project Assistant

Storytelling and Documentary Project Assistant

Job No: 512124

Division/Organization: Community Partners

Department: WiscAI

Job Type: Local Work Study Student Jobs

Remote Eligbility: Partially Remote

Location: Enter Location

Salary/Wage Range or Lump Sum: $25.00

Job Categories: Interpersonal Communication, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving, Digital Technology, Professionalism/Work Ethic, Performing and Visual Arts, Communications, Broadcasting, and Media Arts, Local Work-Study Required Student Jobs

WiscAI is a small AI product studio in Madison. We build working AI systems inside real organizations in Wisconsin: manufacturers, universities, credit unions, athletic departments. The student works with the founder and with the teammate who runs our marketing and business development, next to a team that uses AI all day.

As early as September 29, 2026, and no later than October 13, 2026

December 9, 2026. A spring option, if the project continues, is decided in November.

Partially Remote

Minimum: 4 Maximum:8

About 6 hours a week on average, two half-days, up to 60 hours for the fall. The standing session is Wednesday evenings at Starting Block in Madison; the rest moves with the work. Everything from a session is due within five days. Recording is in person; the cutting and the notes can be done anywhere. If your fall schedule looks tight, say so and we will look at it together before either of us commits.

Minimum: $25.00

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

Fits best a junior, senior, or graduate student with room for two half-days a week this fall. A Federal Work-Study award is required for this posting.

• Curious enough to keep asking questions after you get the obvious answer.
• Can tell when something is genuinely interesting and when a company simply thinks it is, and will tell us when you do not think something is a story.
• Comfortable saying  I am a student doing a project, is it all right if I record this?  and meaning it.
• Unassuming in a room and good at listening.
• Writes clearly and without jargon. Captions, transcripts, and a page of notes are part of every session.
• Follows business, technology, media, or the changing world of work.
• Delivers on a deadline without being chased. Five days after a session means five days.
• Uses AI tools thoughtfully, without handing them your judgment.
• Shoots and cuts on your own camera or a recent iPhone. We provide Descript for the cuts and a shared Drive folder.

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 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 Linked In 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.

What you will do:

• Record at the sessions we schedule. This fall those include a…