Gimme the most info in the shortest time

We all know the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”...but what about videos? Long-time video
advertiser Robert Weiss says that “Business decision makers LOVE online video because it gives them
the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time.” We wanted to explain what the production
of ‘Meditations on Nationalism’ is, solicit donations, and interest people in Quarry Theatre. All of that in
a video no longer than 1 minute 45 seconds.

I’ve always loved creating and editing videos since I was a kid. Once I came to college, I started to
recognize the possibilities and benefits of video for advertisement purposes. With an organization like
Quarry Theatre, people really want to see what is going to be performed before they go. This is exactly
why movie trailers exist. So I was tasked with creating a video that will entice prospective patrons and
get interested in the show.
The first step in this process was to interview the Artistic Director, Ryan Clark, about the show. He was
the best option to interview because he is the head of Quarry Theatre, and he is the one who
directed/conceived the play. I came up with a list of 10 questions to prompt Ryan during our on-camera
interview. I only ended up asking him 6 of the 10 questions I had prepared but I wanted to make sure I
had enough. After the interview in the editing room is where the magic happened.


I was shared and given permission by Quarry Theatre’s Composer to use a track he created for the
show as background music for the interview. Initially, I edited the interview down so there were no
longer and pauses or breaks where you could hear me asking Ryan the Questions. After that step,
the clip was practically cut in half. But, it was still over 6 minutes long. The next step is personally my
favorite part of video editing; creating the story.
I knew a rough layout for how I wanted the video to flow together, so I started moving the clips around
to fit that plan. After I had a rough layout of the interview, I brought in the music track. This pretty much
gave me a solid vision for the rest of the interview. The music really shaped the story in this film.

I finished the project by overlaying B-roll that I filmed during a rehearsal of the project. This B-roll is
really where viewers can get a sneak-peak at what the show has to offer. We ended up sharing the
video on Facebook and got a crazy good amount of interactions. More than a quarter of our liked
users interacted in some way with the video’s post. I’m very happy with how this film turned out,
and I hope it will increase donors for Quarry Theatre in the future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thinking on your feet

Image
It’s finally happened. The workshop for Quarry Theatre’s ‘Meditations on Nationalism’ has come and gone. It was a really good turnout and no one got lost from my signage -- success! Since this was a very important part of my internship to be apart of, I’ll walk you through the day. I arrived fairly early to set up the signage to the theatre. If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out my last blog where I talk about designing the signage and postcards. After setting up the signs I helped set chairs in the theatre for audience members to sit in. I helped in any way I could while setting the theatre and reception area for the workshop. Last minute, we had an idea to set a donation basket on the table outside of the theatre. The workshop was invitation only for actors, directors, and theatre community members who had some connection to  the theatre company. We were very thankful for their feedback but being a non-profit we take any chance  we can to raise money.
Read more

Behind the Curtain

Image
Trying to bring attention to the upcoming production of ‘Meditations on Nationalism’ I had an idea. Quarry Theatre’s audience is very interested in what goes into making the show happen. They have this innocent fascination with the process of devised theatre. Since everything is pretty much created from nothing, I understand their interest. If you are unfamiliar with devised theatre, essentially it is a live performance, usually a play, that is ‘conceived’ or created from nothing. Usually, it is created by the actors, director, designers or a collaboration between them all. I decided to create a sort of ‘mini-series’ focusing on different members of the company and ensemble. We chose the first video to feature Quarry Theatre’s resident composer, Patrick, who did the composition and sound design for ‘Meditations on Nationalism.’ Recently, Quarry Theatre posted an image on Facebook featuring Patrick recording live musicians to be used for the show. The post had a lot of
Read more

Workshop prep and more postcards

This week Ryan and I met to discuss the designed postcards and to go over the plans for the company's workshop. This week was pretty hectic with planning, organizing, and a bunch of emails. On top of all of this , I was really busy with school work and extracurriculars. I learned a lot about time management and communication tips throughout this week. The first order of business was to discuss were the postcards I had previously designed for print. Besides changing a few of the wording on the back and adding ticket prices, the company shared my enjoyment of how the cards turned out. I now needed to email the print company and hopefully, they will  be able to turn around the cards in a day so we can hand them out at the workshop. Before emailing the  print shop the final PDF print file, I was a little skeptical. I knew there weren't any grammatical errors; I was worried if I had set up the document correctly. If you’ve been following my blog at all, you know  my la
Read more