The Challenge: Produce a 60-90 second video based on a San Francisco neighborhood.
The Equipment: Smartphones for shooting, iMovie App for editing.
The Teams: Groups of 4 chosen at random.
The Timing: From ideation to storyboards to shooting to editing. Start to finish in 6 hours including transportation and lunch.
The Budget: $0.00
The What: eTourism Summit hosted a “Smart Phone Storytelling Video Production Workshop.”
The Learnings: See the video and read our interview (below) with Jessica Blank from Philadelphia’s One Liberty Observation Deck.
The Haight-Ashbury Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/37hgowwt7p40jrr/Haight-Ashbury.mp4?dl=0
Q: What was your prior experience in producing destination videos with a smartphone?
A: I’m the Marketing Manager for One Liberty Observation Deck, an attraction in Philadelphia. My experience is very minimal; I’ve filmed videos on my smartphone in the past for social content, but never a fully produced video with storyboarding and editing.
Q: Did the finished product exceed expectations for what you thought you could produce in 6 hours with a team of 4 and a budget of zero? If so, how?
A: Absolutely, If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that video had to take at least a couple days to plan, shoot, edit. We really had no clear idea on what we wanted our video to be about. I think the fact that we all were not familiar with Haight-Ashbury lead us to the same question we asked our interviewees, “Tell us about the neighborhood, what is this place about?” and that kind of helped us define the direction of the video.
We ended up meeting a lot of nice people in the area, they were all open to speaking with us. It ended up to be easier than we thought.
Q: What are the top logistical learnings you would share with others? (You may wish to speak about the audio track; yours was very good.)
A: We lucked out with the audio track which happened to be written by one of our interviewees. She was happy to play it for us and what better way to showcase Haight-Ashbury then show sights and sounds from the people of Haight-Ashbury.
Logistical learning – If your phone is handy, always be shooting, you can never have enough B-roll, and everyone has a slightly different perspective so you never know what you can end up with. I was tasked as the producer and scouting new interviews/locations, even though I was jumping in and out of places, I was still shooting a lot of b-roll, I think we still felt like we didn’t have enough with all four of us shooting.
Q: How did the video production workshop inspire you to do more video back at your office?
A: It’s certainly made me less intimidated about editing. Low cost, low production projects can work just as well with a little time and planning. It now makes me think about how I can incorporate video content into all our campaign and initiatives.
Thank you to our video workshop facilitators:
Introduction and Team Designations – Florian Hermann, CEO, HMS Global
Tips and Tricks for Shooting Videos – Anthony Bocquentin, CEO, Barberstock
How to Create a Story—Storyboarding Advice – Ryan Thompson, CEO, Odyssey
And to the video team assigned to Haight-Ashbury:
Emily Knight, Bradenton Area CVB | Jerrica Bennett, Monroe-West Monroe CVB | Malarie Puggioni, Beverly Hills CVB
Watch The Travel Vertical for another team’s video next week.
