During his time making promotional content–commonly known as “hype videos”– for the MFS Boys’ Varsity soccer team as a freelance videographer, Paul Frendach, more commonly known by his Instagram handle, Vision Oasis, became a popular name around the MFS campus through his work. Now, he has expanded his work in the MFS community in partnership with the Marketing and Communications Department and is looking to capture footage of other sports and MFS student life in general.
Vision Oasis runs his own LLC through which he produces visual content, including photos and videos, for clients. His work at MFS began with the boys’ soccer team but soon evolved into a larger role in the school community.
“I started talking to [Director of Marketing and Communications] Mike [Schlotterbeck] directly about what more I could do for other teams and for the school as well, such as sports films and marketing films,” Frendach said.
Schlotterbeck added that after seeing Frendach’s work during the soccer season, he felt that would be a good fit for the MFS community. Giving more insight into the decision behind MFS’s partnership with Vision Oasis, Schlotterbeck shared, “People want to see videos of school life…and it’s not necessarily easy to quickly produce video content for social media, for our website, for our newsletter. We want to make sure that prospective families are able to see different things that are happening at the school.”
As a subcontractor, Frendach is hired on a project-by-project basis to produce different videos. This means that, currently, Frendach is just doing specific projects for the school, but is “hoping to build a long-term relationship with [MFS].”
Frendach visits the MFS campus a couple of times each week to record footage for the videos he will later produce. Throughout the winter sports season, he attended swim and fencing meets and crafted hype videos for each team. Varsity Swim team captain Julia Brown ’24 shared that she “thought it was a really cool thing, having an outside person come and compile swim clips of everyone on our team. It showcased everyone in such a fun way, and the team all enjoyed watching themselves.”
With the spring sports season coming to a close, Frendach has visited campus numerous times to collect footage of the spring sports teams. Members of the Varsity Girls’ and Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse teams were featured mostly recently in new hype videos on the Vision Oasis instagram account.
In addition to sports videos, Frendach has created “Day in the Life” films for MFS. He noted that “these videos are different from my sports films that I’ve done already. I’m coming on campus much more often because I have to capture every aspect of what you all see as students.” Frendach is making these videos for Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School, capturing the diverse range of MFS students’ daily experiences.
Sophia Lalani ’25, an Upper School Diversity Committee co-clerk, was running a Diversity meeting on a day that Frendach was shooting for the Upper School “Day in the Life” video. Lalani echoed Brown’s sentiments and added her appreciation for the platform that Frendach’s work brings to different areas of the school.
“A lot of the time … our committee is underrepresented and unrecognized for the work we do, so it was cool to see Diversity [Committee] getting that representation,” Lalani said.
Additionally, Frendach visited campus to capture videos of the Science and Engineering Expo (SEE) and of Lower School Environmental Day.
Frendach said he has enjoyed becoming familiar with the MFS community, building connections with Upper School students.
“A lot of people know my name, and that small community feel is probably the best part about it.”