Making Instructional Videos Fun for the Access Fund and Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition
For a long time we’ve partnered with the Kentucky-based non profit the Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition (RRGCC) to provide still photography and even some occasional video production work. When they were the recipient of a grant from the Access Fund to create new media with the goal of guiding climbers to make the transition from the gym to the crag, they reached out to us. What resulted were a series of short, but fun, video segments used online and at in-person meetings.
Early in the planning process we knew that we didn’t want to create a boring video with a list of rules and “you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that,” so our team got to work developing a video concept that would keep things light yet informative. While researching other instructional videos, airline safety videos kept popping up. Anyone who’s ever flown on a commercial airline has likely suffered through these, but there have been a few well-produced, and even entertaining safety videos created over the years. The biggest questions for us were: Would the concept be strong enough for people to “get it?” And could we pull this off while keeping things within budget? We convinced the RRGCC that we could, so we set off to work to make it happen!
During script writing we started by getting the core list of guidance and language from the RRGCC and AF that we would need to use; certain terms and rules would have to be specific, but we knew that we could be cheeky and use metaphors elsewhere. So we wrote the script around the guidelines as a starting point. Right away we saw an opportunity to break things up into several short videos that would be more easily watched by viewers online, but also work with our concept for stages of travel, such as preparing for departure, arriving at a destination, etc. Whenever we could, lines in the script would play off common airline terms and sayings used in their safety videos.
With a script approved, we then had to get talent, wardrobe, props, locations, and a production schedule put together. Again, keeping things under budget meant we didn’t have the means to work with an agency for any of the above, so we leveraged our connections with the local climbing community to identify and audition potential talent, and shopped on Amazon for wardrobe and props. We spent a day scouting and rock climbing, and slowly but surely everything came together!
On the day of our video shoot, we fought changing light conditions and had to quickly move gear in and out of a rock shelter to avoid periods of rain. Typical Kentucky! Our talent did great, and a whole crew of volunteers came out to act in small scenes related to the different guidelines we were covering.
In editing, we found some great music tracks that really set the tone, and added some humorous sound effects and graphics where they were needed. In the end, the client and the local climbing community enjoyed these videos, and we feel that we achieved our goals of having a fun yet informative video series!
It was a great experience to work on such a worthwhile project for our Kentucky climbing community!
Here is the final, full video: