Family & Children’s Services wanted a video for its in-person fundraising event, Brainiac Ball. Before we started any planning, the first thing they told me was that they wanted the video to make people cry and be inspired to support through resources or donations.

We started the production process four months before the event with our Video Marketing Workshop to plan the look and feel of the video. Our system helped them determine they wanted the video to tug on the heartstrings while telling a personal story.

By the end of the Workshop, we decided to tell the stories of three children who had used the programs at Family & Children’s Services to improve their lives. Due to privacy issues, we couldn’t use an actual child client on camera. We determined that using actors to portray the children was the best course. Each actor would tell the success story of a real family. (Our child actors, by the way, were amazing!)

Creatively, we wanted to keep things simple on camera. No crazy edits or flashy movements. Just the actor telling their story.

We decided to visually show the child’s transition from before using Family & Children’s Services to after by going from black and white to color. Everything before is depicted in black and white and everything after is in color, with a slow dissolve as the actor talks about their life changing because of Family & Children’s Services.

We also included some b-roll of the child in happier times to further illustrate how much their life has changed.

This project was a lot of fun to work on and the people at Family & Children’s Services couldn’t have been more amazing to partner with. I love how they were open to doing things a little different in order to produce a memorable video.