Challenge: Opening day for a big national conference of federal grantees is just two months away. The client wants a opening session video to mark the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964–War on Poverty legislation that set the nation on a new path to confront poverty through consumer and community economic empowerment. The charge: create a video to mark the occasion but make it relate to the work of the meeting attendees.
Starting from scratch, Public Ink takes a day or two and comes up with a concept, a time frame, a budget and partners with videographer Bunkr and the graphic design firm Skolos-Wedell. We get to work and:
- Talk to the client about their key issues and initiatives.
- Gather relevant reports, studies and facts.
- Conduct historic research on economic development efforts over the past half century.
- Think broadly and prepare a script to frame the War on Poverty as part of America’s history to strive and improve conditions for all people, from early 20th century reforms of the Industrial Revolution to later New Deal programs.
The concept gets the okay. Now to make it happen:
- Find fair-use and public domain images that tell the story.
- Tweak the script to squeeze over 100 years of anti-poverty work into less than 5 minutes.
- Refine the images.
- Develop a typography.
- Find the write musical score and voice over.
- Deliver the drafts to the client, review and revise.
- Wrap it up and be ready before opening day, with videos that play well in the room and on the web.