What’s more rewarding than producing videos for the big screen?
Try producing a video series for six large screens playing simultaneously at a live event. So we were thrilled when the high profile event production firm Opts Ideas approached us about producing a series of multi-screen videos for their client’s annual conference in Chicago.
The client, LPL Financial, is one of the nation’s largest independent brokers. Each year they hold a conference to inspire and educate their independent advisors. The theme at this year’s conference is “Focus on the Future”, examining the unique financial complexities, concerns and goals of financial advisor’s clients. The challenge was to produce a video series that would play over the course of this three-day event. Each video hat to be:
1) visually impactful
2) emotionally compelling
3) multi-dimensional
4) entertaining (these people are at a three-day conference about financing)!
It was the perfect project for our collective skills: short form story-telling and dynamic motion graphics.
With this in mind, Studio B produced a series of three documentary-style vignettes, profiling three unique families at different life stages and critical financial changes.
The real challenge began with finding the families to cast. Not only did they need to fit the age group and financial standing of LPL’s clients, but they had to be charismatic people, with a visually impressive pastime (rowing, skydiving, mountain biking) and a compelling storyline.
From dozens of families originally nominated, we ultimately landed on three sweet families – the Sutters, the Snows and the Crums - all of whom had their own unique story to tell. We worked closely with OptsIdeas to craft three short docs that would compliment the style and message of the event. Our post-production supervisor Aaron Barry met the technical and creative challenge of orchestrating footage, graphics and audio for six different screens head on.
Without having seen the venue we had to determine the perspective of viewers in their seats at all angles and how to best utilize the three screens at the far end of the stage and the smaller screens in front. We determined the back screens would act as a moving “wallpaper” and the three smaller front screens would play the documentaries. For the graphical introduction to each segment, all six screens would fill with animation that would eventually reveal a live action portrait of the family.
How’d it turn out? In the end, thousands of people attended the conference and we sent our very own producer/director Jane Selle Morgan to report on viewer response. “They laughed, they cried, and most importantly, they got the message!” With this mega-galactic project now complete, we’ll be holding our own in-house screening to toast a mission completed.
