To take one's first step in a brand new world can be daunting. With the help of an old friend, we gathered our wits to collaborate on a project set to make a difference in our home base of New York CIty...and begin our own journey into video production.
The Client:
Theatre of the Oppressed of New York City (TONYC) in its most basic terms is: local community organizations performing scenes for policy makers and community members, inspiring them to change laws to protect oppressed groups of people.
While it all sounds kinda idealistic, it’s actually a reality. City legislators show up to these “Legislative Theatre Festivals” to hear what is going wrong in our city, and how the people want to fix it. Together with the audience, legislators draft up new laws which the audience votes on. Thanks to last year’s festival, new laws were passed to protect homeless LGBTQ youth.
I like that you’re not watching trained actors showcasing their craft as taught to them by the whoever of the whatever theatrical society. These are victims of our, unfortunately flawed society; the scenes come from their own lives. Furthermore, I love that the people who care enough to be there and participate, are people whose votes get counted. Its democracy at its finest.
Who knew attending a theater event would have such a huge impact?
However, these festivals need funding and that’s where Peppermint Elephant comes in. We are making a video for their 10x10 campaign. In case you don’t know what a 10x10 campaign is, that's fine, not a lot of people don't, that’s why we’re making a video.
100 TONYC friends become Catalysts and collect $10 from 10 of their friends. After 10 days they’ve raised $10,000, for funding the event.
The Project:
Peppermint Elephant is downright thrilled to have a hand in such a noble cause and dead up honored that Katy Rubin, TONYC's Founding Artistic Director, has put her good faith in our brand new, little company. After meeting with Katy and her staff, we felt inspired to become a part of their efforts and they were nothing short of a perfect first client.
Their voice, their vote needed to be conveyed.
As we deftly laid down sequences of edited footage to reflect the voice of the script, we began to feel this was more than matching footage with voice-over, we needed that symbolic element to reach out to the viewers.
Furthermore, wanted viewers to watch something happening in the "now," and for the video to feel inclusive of everyone and anyone. So we proposed to Katy a concept for a sequence requiring a day of shooting, and she jumped on board!
It was cold and windy that day in Dumbo, where the TONYC office is located, but that didn't stop the staff from coming out to the streets to participate in the shoot. Our goal was to capture footage of their green voting cards. As a key element in the passing of legislation, we found the symbol we were looking for in this little green card. After getting the participation of TONYC, our own friends, family and even just passerbys wanted in.
It's clear how much people care about the cause we are grateful to everyone who participated
In putting together all the footage, we also found that some elements needed to standout more than others. The video was always intended to move quickly and invoke excitement, but there were definitely moments in the script we wanted viewers to focus on. So Mario, being the expert animator he is, designed motion graphic titles for viewers to take in the ultimate message behind the video.
The Sound:
“I like to think that Empire State of Mind is like our theme song.” - TONYC's Katy Rubin
Along with the Brooklyn rapper’s ode to his hometown for inspiration, the TONYC family threw out a couple must haves for music evocative of their personality and tone. Jazzy. Urban. Rough around the edges.
And so began the research. Mario listened to the track and tried to hone in on what it was that really resonated with Katy and the TONYC crew about the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys duet. The bombast. The inspiring lyrics. The simple yet persistent beat underscoring the stadium-shaking piano chords.
It can be tricky when given such a specific track to create something that satisfies both the client’s desires as well as one's own tendencies to not want to repeat tried and true roads.
Recording the official voice over, could not have come sooner. You don't know what it means to be sick of your voice until you've edited and reedited a video over a dummy recording of a voiceover, read by yourself. When we heard Mike Gee read the script for the first time, it redefined inspiration. Here was a young man with a deep, booming voice, just what this video needed to tie it all together. As he read the words, we could see it all come together like, well like Darth Vader and James Earl Jones.
The Wrap:
Sending out our final edit was like that moment at the end of the day when you realize that you have nothing left to do but go to sleep. Literally, we both worked all weekend and finished the edit that night, drank some hot chocolate and passed out. Two days later Katy emailed us a link to TONYC's vimeo account, and there lies Peppermint Elephant's very first video. The campaign reached its $10,000 goal and TONYC employed us in making alternate versions and additional videos.
