The Video “Back Story”
This project originally started as book – but we realized very quickly that you can’t read about presentation skills and hope to be able to improve your own skills. So, we morphed the project into a short instructional film to provide instruction, examples, and a sample full-length interview. While actors played the roles in a project team, we coached them to make it realistic. The interview isn’t perfect but, it is a strong example of a typical interview. On a funny note, our superintendent “Roger Smith” surprised us with how well he played the role until we found out he spends his days off camera in the field as a general superintendent for a local contractor. I know you’ll find the examples useful and the content helpful in understanding a new methodology for winning short-list interviews.
We worked with a talented local design team at Dykeman Architects to help us take a hypothetical Request For Proposal and turn it into the concept for a building. We wanted to do this to avoid using any of our clients’ actual work or ideas. The building turned out rather well – for being designed based on a script and a very tight (and hypothetical) budget. It’s a basic building, but the team put together a site plan, program, and even a fly-through to help illustrate concepts. We even found a fake donor to fund the building (Dorothy M. Goode unfortunately does not exist and our office manager, Laine, who plays Dorothy in the video is fortunately very much alive). Now, if we could just find a real community that wants to build our community center….
The filming was done by an incredibly talented Hollywood film team lead by our director, David Billingsley. Our camera artist, Kristian Gabriel and our lighting design lead, Roger Sita, made us all look good. I know you’ll be impressed with the quality of their work and the professional presentation. I’m even blown away by what they did. In the coming year, look for the next installments that go in greater detail into research, content development, delivery skills, and answering audience questions. The team has tentatively titled this “Lord of the Rings,” which probably indicates the scope of the effort – or the special effects they are planning.
Making a film of this scope and length was an education. We learned that the camera really does add 15 pounds and that hemorrhoid crème is really used by actors under their eyes in the morning (ick). Our make-up team did amazing things – as I get older, I may hire them for every day work. For every minute on camera, it took over an hour of filming, editing, and re-editing. And, we’re all still speaking. We hope you enjoy the end result and most importantly, that it helps you and your teams win work through engaging and relevant interviews.
Meg’s latest thoughts on helping teams win new work.