Some projects give us the opportunity to tell one story. Others allow us to explore several different stories that ultimately connect back to the same larger purpose.

That was the case with a recent video campaign we produced for the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The project centered on three current students: Abby, Akshay and Cora. It focused on the ways their experiences, studies and work reflect the school’s vision of advancing “health, dignity, and justice for every human.”

Over three shoot days we spent time getting to know each student. This allowed us to find the best way to visually tell their story. In the end we created five distinct videos that could be used strategically throughout the school’s financial aid communications.

Three Students, Three Cities

Our first shoot was in Washington, DC, with Abby Charles. As a Doctor of Public Health student, she is taking what she learns in the classroom and applying it directly to her work as Director of the Public Health Institute for Washington DC, Maryland & Virginia. Yes she’s a full time student in Boston and works full time for an agency in DC!

Next, we headed to Cambridge to film with Akshay. His interest in public health was shaped in part by volunteering with Guardians of Dreams in Bangalore. This is where he saw how young people with very similar dreams could have dramatically different access to opportunity. His work now explores how public health can better support young people. He particularly focuses on those facing challenges such as poverty, trauma and discrimination, as they make the transition into adulthood.

Our final shoot was with Cora Cunningham at Jamaica Pond. Cora’s work focuses on water, sanitation and health, including improving water access in rural Rwanda. Because water plays such an important role in her story, Jamaica Pond gave us a setting that connected naturally to her work. It’s also close to her home and a place she finds personally meaningful. This made the location feel even more authentic to who she is.

That was an important part of our approach throughout the project. Rather than simply putting each student in front of the same backdrop, we wanted the locations and visuals to help tell their stories.

Making Three Shoot Days Work Harder

While we filmed with three students, the project was designed from the beginning to extend well beyond three individual profiles. We also created a video that brought their stories together. This showed the collective impact of students pursuing very different areas of public health.

A shorter thank-you piece gave the footage another purpose, speaking directly to donors about the role financial aid has played in making these opportunities possible. Together, the five videos could be strategically incorporated into different email communications, reaching specific audiences with the right message at different points in their journey.

It’s one of the things I love about planning a project like this. A few thoughtfully planned shoot days can become much more than a few standalone videos. When you think about the audience, messaging and distribution before the cameras start rolling, you can build a library of content that serves different purposes and continues working long after production wraps.

Bringing a Mission to Life

Harvard President Alan Garber has called the university’s students “living proof that our mission not only changes lives but the trajectories of entire communities.” That idea became the foundation for this campaign, and spending time with Abby, Akshay and Cora gave us the opportunity to show what it looks like through real people and their experiences.

Their stories are very different, but each one demonstrates the potential ripple effect of investing in education and public health. Our job was to find the moments, settings and details that could bring those stories to life. This is done on screen while still connecting them back to one larger message.

If your organization has a story to tell, whether it’s in one location or several, I’d love to help you think about how video can bring it to life. Let’s connect and talk about what we can create together.