Due to the pandemic, my client Prism United had to cancel their typical live event fundraising efforts for two years. So for the October 2021 fundraising season, they contacted me about doing a series of video interviews to show the impact of their programming and to use as a content rollout leading up to their fundraising pitch at the end of the month. 

As we talked about what the interview pieces would look like, Corey Harvard (the executive director of Prism) mentioned that he didn’t want them to be too “sales-y:” he was hoping to capture authentic thoughts and feelings from the young people who take advantage of Prism programming while including some of their personal stories. 

I told him that creating a short docu-series about young LGBTQ people living in the south was a dream project of mine and talked about how we could capture b-roll of the area to really make the videos feel local and showcase the location where Prism’s work takes place, including drone footage I would capture. 

We agreed that showing the lives of LGBTQ youth would serve as a powerful illustration and help speak to Prism’s mission: “Find community. Be yourself.” 

Other benefits Corey mentioned: 

• legitimizing the organization through professional video

• creating evergreen content that lives beyond the campaign
  

Talk about the gear you used--cinematic effect -- doesn’t have to be big cinema cameras to achieve the result, I’m not interested in “impressing” clients 

• Lumix GH4 for main interviews with a Canon 80D secondary 

• Sony A6300 in 120fps for the b-roll 

• Zoom H6, Rode shotgun mic 

• DJI Mavic for the drone footage