A few months ago, Marty and I wrote and produced the opening video for the BusinessWest “40 Under Forty” annual extravaganza, whereby business publication BusinessWest recognized forty people under the age of forty for their outstanding contributions to the business community. All of the movers and shakers were there — about 600 or so this time — so it was a great opportunity for us to demonstrate our creativity as well as contribute to a fantastic event. Normally, that would be the end of it. The event ends. Everyone gets back to their daily routines. But, this year, that was not the case.
As fate would have it, in attendance that night were the president and marketing director for an organization that is celebrating its 100th year in business. As part of their Centennial celebration, the senior leadership was planning to take all of the employees and their significant others to a Mt. Washington resort for a weekend celebration for their significant milestone. As they sat in the “40 Under Forty” event enjoying our opening video, a brilliant idea came to their minds – we need viz-bang! to produce an opening video for our event.
We got the call the next day — could we produce something as funny, if not funnier, than what we did for “40 Under Forty”? After an initial meeting with the president and marketing director, we proposed five concepts — most of them pretty high concept — and they picked the one they felt was best suited for their needs.
They chose the concept about which we were most excited. We knew it would be funny, engage many of the employees and would allow us to work with a talented TV actor from New York City. We shot the video over two days and were pleased when our clients told us we hit it out of the park. They also were kind enough to text us from the event in New Hampshire right after the video played to a packed house. It killed! Since they event, they’ve had requests from numerous people – including the hotel people – for copies of the DVD.
Some factors contributing to the success of the project include:
- A clever script.
- Reasonable budget.
- Wonderful support from the senior leadership at the company.
- Creating a concept that required the participation of many employees. It was good to get their buy-in.
- Including outtakes as the credits rolled.
- A talented production crew.
We believe we can create a niche for producing comedy-centric corporate videos. They’re a great morale booster and a refreshing change of pace from traditional corporate communications. The key – and I think we did a good job on this project – is not to cross the comedy line. We walked up to it during this project, but we didn’t cross it.
A pirate in a conference room? It’s in context so it’s o.k.
One way of bringing more employees into the production is to come up with a concept that includes videoconferencing.
The “40 Under Forty” video that got us the corporate comedy gig.
