Denver Jewish Day School: The Case for Strategic Ongoing Video Content
Project Objective
6162 Productions has partnered with Denver Jewish Day School (DJDS), a K-12 community Jewish day school, for several years to create video content, mainly for the school’s annual fundraiser. Last summer, their team came to us with a need for ongoing video content throughout the 2022-23 school year. They needed several videos for the fundraising event, admissions videos to recruit and attract prospective students, several pieces of marketing content to show programs that set them apart from other schools, and to share students’ stories. The challenge was how to provide videos to meet all these needs (from three departments in the school) efficiently and in a budget-friendly manner.
Our Solution
Late last summer, we met with the development, marketing, and admissions departments to assess all their video needs for the school year. After talking through their goals, timelines, priorities, and budget, we all decided that we’d create:
3 social media videos for admissions to promote the school’s upcoming Kindergarten, Middle School, and High School preview events in the fall
3 tribute videos for each of the honorees to be shown at the annual fundraising dinner in the spring
1 video about the school’s unique Color War program in the spring
1 video to showcase their athletics program at the end of the school year
We were going to produce a new impact video to show at the fundraiser, but to save costs and allocate the budget to create the Color War and Athletics videos, we updated the video from last year with new B-roll of kids and staff without masks
We also updated 3 short program videos to include footage without masks
We then determined how many production days we would need to capture everything for these deliverables. Since production time is the most expensive part of a full-service video production process, we were determined and dedicated to being efficient and strategic with this time. We were able to film all interviews and B-roll in just four and a half days spread out throughout the school year.
How We Made It Happen
We communicated with the DJDS staff frequently during the pre-production phases of the project to be sure the production days were used well to capture as much as possible, thinking through all of the video needs. Thankfully, their team was well-organized and helped fill the days with interviews for the honoree, athletics, Color War, and admissions videos and clearly communicated which interviews went with which video to make the editing process go smoothly. We scheduled production days when sports games and other important programs were happening so there were plenty of great B-roll opportunities.
During pre-production, we also worked with the DJDS staff to understand their goals, who the target audiences were for each video, how and where they’d be shown, and the tone and feel for each video. For example, the honoree videos were shown at the fundraising event to donors, while admissions videos were used as ads and posts on social media targeted to prospective families.
On production days, we had one videographer conduct interviews (with a producer who was there to help ask interview questions and keep things running smoothly) while another videographer shot B-roll throughout the school with a DJDS staff member. We captured cinematic footage in classrooms, in the hallways, outside, during athletics games and practices, and captured aerial drone footage of the buildings and fields. For efficiency and consistency, we conducted all the interviews in one room with the same 2-camera set-up and lighting.
In addition to the interviews for the videos 6162 Productions was producing, we had time to capture additional interviews with some students and parents for a “My DJDS Story” social media video series. We provided the raw footage from these interviews to the marketing team to edit and post throughout the year.
Our team loved being in the school for so many days, and getting to know the students, staff, and families! We could feel the happy energy buzzing around the campus, and witnessed what makes that school so special - like Color War, you really have to see to understand what it is! We were lucky to be there on the day of an assembly when the varsity boys’ basketball team received their championship trophy and heard inspiring words from the coaches. Some of that footage went into the athletics video. Since we established an ongoing, trusted relationship with the school, we felt like members of their mishpacha (family) by the end of the year!
Client Feedback
We received great feedback throughout the year from the DJDS community, both in person and in positive comments on social media.
Matan Halzel, Marketing Manager and Admission Associate says, "What has stood out to me the most about 6162 Productions is how much they care about the production. At DJDS, we film a lot of interviews with 6162, and members of their team will frequently engage with adults and students in our school community - even asking them questions during the interview. I got the feeling that they truly had a vested interest in what they were covering and that they were equally as invested in the end product as we are."
Matan also appreciated the raw footage we gave him for the “My DJDS Story” series that he edited and shared that engagement is high on those social media posts.
Watch all the DJDS videos we created this school year!
Do you want to talk about how to strategically and affordably use ongoing video content? Contact us to get started!