Recovering Oklahomans After Disaster Video

This project was five months in the making. It started in November of 2022 when Recovering Oklahomans After Disaster (R.O.A.D.) demolished the Sollars family home. Over the next five months we followed the construction progress as a new home was built from the ground up.

R.O.A.D. wanted the video to cover two topics. One was the construction of the new home and the other was to show R.O.A.D.’s mission to help people whose home were damaged due to a natural disaster.

We were focused on producing a video that would show how the Sollars’ life was changed thanks to R.O.A.D. as opposed to a video showing how to build a new home. To achieve this we decided early in the project that we didn’t need to shoot every detail of the construction. Instead, we targeted a few specific days to shoot video and then used still pictures from R.O.A.D. to create a time-lapse showing the home being built.

We interviewed the Sollars family about halfway through the construction. I knew that we would also get to talk to them the day they took possession of the new house so during our first interview I was mostly focused on the history of the house and why they needed a new one. I didn’t ask many questions about what they thought of the construction since I knew their emotions could be different once the home was finished.

On the big reveal day I made sure I got there before the Sollars did in order to get some b-roll of the exterior and interior of the house. I knew going in that final day how I would tell the story. I thought it was important to draw the viewer in early and show the Sollars family reaction to the new home first without showing too much of the home itself.

The raw emotion of Curtis Sollars was intense and I knew it would cause the viewer to want to see how we got to that point. After the short introduction the story backtracked a bit to explain what R.O.A.D. is and what it does. The story then transitioned into the building of the home and why the Sollars continued to live in it. Finally, ending with the big reveal and showing the Sollars taking possession of the home and allowing the viewer to see the home for themselves.

I find stories like this to be especially effective as we simply show the Sollars’ emotional reaction to their new home. This kind of storytelling has a much bigger impact than just being full of information about R.O.A.D. It’s sure to stay with the viewer much longer.