Thriving Weld Promotional Video 2019 from George Sickler on Vimeo.

I thought I would take a break from our business advice series to show you this awesome thing that Weld County hired us to create – the Thriving Weld promo video! But this video was slightly more challenging than we’re used to…

When we first received a call from Thriving Weld, they were interested in having us capture their event on video, capture a few on-camera testimonies, and edit it together in a simple highlight music video. When we met with them over coffee, we, then, discussed a few other options, one of which is our story-telling option, which is the one they chose.

For our story-telling promo, we delve much deeper than just capturing what’s happening at an event. We first ask the client to introduce us to about 3 people who have been impacted by their awesome services or products. After we’ve gotten to know those 3 prospects through a few questions, we are able to pinpoint who would be best to use as the “heart” of our story. Research shows that a promo or commercial with an emotional pull of some kind produces better results than a promo video that simply contains facts and figures.

Since Thriving Weld is an organization aimed at compiling health info about the county and connecting people with helpful organizations to improve their health, we really wanted to use a story regarding someone who has been helped thru Thriving Weld. Instead, we got an even better story – someone who WISHES they would’ve had that kind of help as a child going thru some traumatic experiences but who now uses that desire that arose from that trauma in order to work with organizations like Thriving Weld to make life better for other kids. Shawn Walcott’s story is really moving!

Once we decided to utilize him as our “heart”, we wrote a script and hired voice-over talent for it, purchased a royalty-free music piece, captured Shawn’s interview on video, found a few others to say a few things to support his story (teachers, ACHA administrators, etc), captured some footage of kids running in a school gym, and collected relevant photos from Shawn and Thriving Weld. Of course, we also used footage from the Thriving Weld summit, and some interviews from summit attendees. We then took all of this footage, photos, voice-over, and music and edited it together with some motion graphics, and VOILA! You have a polished promo video!

So, why was all of that challenging? Well, first of all, choosing a “heart” is a heart-wrenching endeavor (pun intended). The stories we heard were very moving, but we couldn’t use all of them! Making that cut was difficult.

Secondly, we were so out-of-the-loop when it came to what our own county’s health department actually does that it took a while to do our homework in order to even write the script!

The third and final challenge had to do with location, location, location. Unfortunately, when I asked our local rec center if we could use a room to videotape in, I asked for an empty exercise room…but when we arrived, the room had not been assigned or scheduled, so we had to call the manager so that he could inform the front desk that we had permission – he asked if we could use the gym. Sure, no problem, I thought! Well, the gym was full of people noisily lifting weights. Having the front desk personnel turn off the music was helpful, but we still had to work around the noises. Oh well, lesson learned – I’ll be more specific about the room that I want from here on out!

Even though we ran into some challenges, it wasn’t enough to knock us out. We produced and delivered a video that the client was extremely happy with and in the end, that’s all that matters! If you are looking for a way to promote your business or organization, let us know! We provide promo videos for all of Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming - Cheyenne, Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland, and Denver. Click here to see more video options!