Winning Combination - Our Troops, kids and the holidays

Ran across an ad on FB which jumps you to a simple, but sweet video promoting a new program being offered by Sears and a bunch of other big retailers around the country.  The concept - buy something for the family of a solider who is serving overseas.  The ad shows a child playing by the sea, but the voice over tells you a captivating story that's hard to ignore.  You get a glimpse of a soldier, but only a glimpse.  What makes it work?  Simplicity, a good script and voice over, and sweet visuals.  It's simple elegance... not what I would expect from Sears.     Sears Troops Ad.

Inspiration

Okay, the end of the year is closing fast.  Every day you are seeing the top ten lists of the best of 2008 for movies and music, and politics and on and on ......

Well here's a different kind of inspiration that's filmic that I found on the Web...  40 Inspirational movie moments in 2 Minutes.  2 minutes 15 seconds actually, but who's counting?  Fun stuff.  Note the music.  The music sets the tone, and gets loud and in your face.  No accident if you're trying to inspire with film!   So here it is

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Fund Raising Video - Agape

When Agape Intl. came to us this late in the summer with the challenge of telling the story of their five orphanages in India we talked about how we would tell their story on a shoestring budget.  The budget did NOT include travel to India for a camera crew, so we had to train them up on how to film the video after we detailed the game plan.  This was the second video I had created for the organization.  This video was meant tell the stories of four of their children while also giving a look into their daily lives.  The video works well, although there were a lot of issues we danced around to get the final product -- from bad sound to shaky images to not enough images.  All the usual we stuff we have with many of our projects.  The final product uses some nice stock music that really drives the emotions home.   The Agape video is right here (below).

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Agape International from paul dewey on Vimeo.

Seasonal Video Messages

It's that time of year for holiday messages.  From the funnies with Santa 'in dispose' to the earnest thank yous from 'the team' to the heartfelt.  And boy do we have the heartfelt for you...  Created by the ASPCA -- a winner that will work even in these hard times.  It couples singer Sarah McLachlan singing Silent Night with some powerful images of animals.  This is one of those no-brainers that would make even Scrooge shed a few tears.

Our own seasonal messages tend towards fund raising at the end of the calendar year and at the end of the school year.  Here's a link to our site's fund raising page.  The first video for Horace Mann School was an end of the year reminder to contribute to the annual fund a thank you for those who did contribute.  DMP Annual Fund Page .

From the Heart Communication

This one's simple and elegant, and it makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. It's a sweet little video called Johnny's story. Hope you like it as much as I do. Great music and some very simple story telling. From the Heart. That's the way to tell them.