proposal-aov

WHO AM I?

My name is Jared Walker. I’m a commercial and travel director/cinematographer. Over the years I've worked on a wide range of projects including national ad campaigns, viral videos, commercials, TV shows, and movies. In the past I've had the opportunity to work with clients such as Google, Verizon, ESPN, Netflix, AMC, Microsoft and many more. The viral videos and commercials I've worked on have over 100 Million views on YouTube and Facebook, and I've been fortunate enough to win a variety of awards for my work. In the last few years I've really focused on doing work that I’m passionate about—work for outdoor/travel companies and non-profits, and creating content to help inspire and educate other creators.

MY ‘WHY’

Early on in my career I was on a very different path than the one I’m on now. I started down a path that was practical and safe, a path leading to what I thought was a good job and financial security. I got my master’s degree from business school, and I ended up working for some really big tech companies out in Silicon Valley. But I realized that the work I was doing wasn’t fulfilling for me. I wasn’t happy with where I was headed, and I knew that if I didn’t make a change I’d end up regretting it for the rest of my life.

So I decided to do what I was really passionate about, which was art, and I ended up becoming a filmmaker. I've been really grateful over the past ten years to do what I love for a living—working as a filmmaker and visual artist. So now my goal is to help other artists/creators that are trying to do the same thing. And that’s the foundation and idea behind this video campaign. I want other up-and-coming creators to know that it’s possible to go after what they’re passionate about and to make a living doing what they love.

THE GOAL

This video campaign is focused on helping creators. The goal is to inspire creators to go after what they love, and to educate them on how to make that happen:

1. Inspiration:

   I believe that all people, but especially creators, have to face a lot of doubts and fears. Going after your passion goes hand in hand with taking risk and putting yourself out there. As artists we can get down on ourselves, especially when other people or society in general tells us that it’s not possible to follow our dreams or do what we love. So we all need a bit of inspiration and motivation. And it can be really inspiring and motivating to hear other creators tell the story of how they’re living their dream and how they made it happen.

2. Education:

   As a creator it can be hard to know where to start or what to do, and some creators might feel overwhelmed if they’re trying to do everything on their own. So it can be really helpful to hear other creators (especially more experienced creators) share their process, experiences, and advice. And especially in this age of technology and social media, the opportunity to learn and grow is like never before.

THE CAMPAIGN

Originally the idea behind this campaign was to just focus on making an inspirational video series. But like I mentioned, I think the most effective way that we can help people with this campaign is through both inspiration and education. So I started thinking of more ways to add education into the campaign, as well as ways to make the campaign sustainable and beneficial to all the parties involved—the creators we’re filming with, Art of Visuals as an organization/company, myself as the director/filmmaker, and the community of individual creators that we’re trying to help.

My personal goal when thinking through this campaign was to find ways to help each of these parties as much as possible, because I believe in the saying, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. And through this campaign I feel like we can do a lot of good for a lot of people, as well as benefit everyone that’s involved. I’ll explain the two main parts of the campaign below:

1. Inspirational Video Series:

The first part of the campaign is to create an inspirational video series where each episode spotlights a different and unique creator. Each creator will tell their story—how they got started, why they do what they do, successes and failures they’ve had along the way, and their advice for other creators. The purpose of these videos is to share the stories behind established or ‘successful’ creators and what helped them along their journey (hard work, creativity, perseverance, etc.) so that the viewers will be inspired and motivated to do what they’re passionate about as well.

Again, our goal with these videos is to inspire the viewer. I feel like the best way for us to inspire and motivate the viewer is to use a style that is a mix of beautiful, cinematic imagery woven together with authentic, candid imagery. The style will be cinematic in certain parts to create interest and anticipation, and to add excitement and energy to the video. However, the main focus of the video will be on the creator and their story. I want the viewer to have a connection with the creator, and I believe this can be accomplished by mixing in footage that’s a bit more candid and “real”—something that feels more organic and authentic.

I want to show the viewer that these established creators (or ‘influencers’) are like the rest of us—human, down-to-earth, and approachable. Showing some candid behind-the-scenes of the creator talking, laughing, being vulnerable, and doing normal things will help the viewer connect to the creator and make their story more compelling. Plus hopefully it will help the viewer realize that anyone can follow their passion and live their dreams. If these creators can do it, then they can do it too.

Where possible I also want to give the viewers an idea of the sheer amount of hard work these creators put in to get better at what they do and to become successful. That’s something that doesn’t come across sometimes on social media or when you’re looking in from the outside. But I think that realization of how much work and dedication it takes to become successful can be really inspiring and motivating for other creators.

Here is an example of an episode that I made as a proof of concept for this series:

These inspirational videos could be anywhere from 3-6 minutes in length. The videos would also be used to promote and point to the second part of the campaign, which I explain next.

2. Series of Online Courses:

Along with each inspirational video episode we release, we’ll also launch an online course that we’ve made with that specific episode’s creator. Each of these courses will be like an online workshop or mini-course where the creator teaches about a topic either on the creative side or the business side of things. The specific topic of the online course would depend on who the creator is and what we’d like to learn from them (or what they specialize in).

For example, we might follow along with a photographer on a shoot and watch/listen as they explain their creative process—how they come up with inspiration/ideas for shoots, their planning process, techniques (composition, lighting, background, camera angle, posing, etc.) and more. The viewer gets to follow along with the photographer as if they were there on the shoot with them personally—following the creator as they work, getting insights into their creative process, learning new techniques, and getting tips and advice to get better at their craft.

Another creator might be amazing at editing, so we sit down and watch as they do an entire editing session in Lightroom. They talk through the reasoning behind their creative choices and the tools that they use to achieve their vision. Or another creator might be really good on the business side of things, so we sit down and discuss in detail topics such as finding and booking clients, pricing, the sales process, etc.

Each online course would be 1-2 hours in length. Long enough that we can pack some really good and useful information into the courses, but not so long as to make the production of the courses overly time intensive and cost prohibitive. Here is a teaser for a workshop/course that has a similar style to what I’m thinking:

For each episode we will spend a day (one full shoot day or two half day shoots) with a creator, following and filming them to get some behind-the-scenes on their creative process. We will also get a sit-down interview with them to find out about their story, how they got to where they are, and the advice that they have for other creators.

Here is an example of a rough shoot schedule for two half days of filming with a creator (for example, a landscape photographer based in San Francisco):

SHOOT DAY 1

• 1:00pm - Meet creator to go to lunch. Spend time getting to know them and putting them at ease before the filming process starts.

• 3:00pm - Go to the creator’s house/office to film the course intro and to have the creator talk about the plan for the shoot the next day. Film them talking about their concept and planning process, as well as the equipment they’ll use for the shoot.

• 6:00pm - Wrap

SHOOT DAY 2

• 5:30am - Meet at creator’s house to film them packing and leaving for the shoot.

• 5:45am - Film them driving to the sunrise shoot location. While driving have the creator talk about their creative process and what they’re trying to achieve on the shoot.

• 6:15am - Film the creator setting up their shot and talking about their process, such as design principles (composition, lighting, background, camera angle, etc.), gear, and thoughts behind the shots and different choices they’re making.

• 8:30am - Film a sit-down interview near the sunrise shoot location. Have the creator talk about their story and journey—how they got started, why they do what they do, successes and failures along the way, and their advice for other creators. Also ask additional questions based on the topic for the online course, in this case landscape photography (e.g. finding clients, selling prints, the work involved in creating/capturing an image, etc.).

• 9:30am - Break for breakfast

• 11:00am - Time for any additional filming at the creator’s house/office. Time could be used for any additional questions, things learned from the shoot (things that did or didn’t go well), and the course close/outro.

• 1:00pm - Wrap

The nice thing about this project is that I could potentially handle all of the production responsibilities (filming, interviews / asking questions, bts, etc.) myself. However, if we wanted to we could potentially bring a producer/host to help with the questions or a second shooter to help get additional coverage.

Here is a list of expenses related to filming a full day with a single creator (creating 1 video episode + 1 online course) for this project. Again, this is using San Francisco as an example location, and only sending a crew of one (myself) to do the production:

• Flight = $117-200

• Hotel (1 night) = $150-250

• Transportation (Uber / Car rental) = $100-150

• Meals (5-6 Director + 3-4 Creator) x $20 = $160-200

• Other/Miscellaneous (fees, snacks, gas, etc.) = $50-100

  TOTAL: $900

As you can see, the budget can be kept fairly low for this project if we keep the crew small and make sure we don’t fly to distant or expensive locations. If we planned on focusing on 5 creators to begin with (5 video episodes + 5 courses) we could potentially do all the production work for $5,000. However, this budget does not take into account compensation for the parties involved in the planning and production (the creators, myself, and AOV) or the work involved with the post-production and promotion/distribution. However, I’ve thought through some ways to make this project sustainable and beneficial for everyone.

Going back to what I mentioned earlier, through this campaign I feel like we can benefit all of the parties involved—the community of individual creators that we’re trying to help, the creators that we’re filming with, myself as the director/producer/editor, and Art of Visuals as the organizer/producer/distributor.

Obviously first and foremost the reason for the online courses is to help educate all of the individual creators in the community—people that want to get better at their craft and more successful with their business/career. This ties into the goal of education that I talked about earlier. So we’re offering the community (the viewers / individual creators) inspirational and educational content that will be a huge benefit for them and their development and growth.

And as a way for this campaign to be sustainable (keeping up-front budget costs low) and a benefit for the rest of the parties involved, I propose that we compensate everyone from the online course revenue. We give a percentage of the course sales to that specific course’s creator as compensation for their time and expertise used to make the course, as well as to support them as artists/creators by giving them an additional stream of revenue. We give a percentage of the course sales to myself as compensation for the time and work spent planning, creating, and editing the episodes and courses. And we give a percentage of the course sales to Art of Visuals for expenses/overhead, and for producing and distributing the episodes and courses to the AOV community. We can discuss what those percentages would look like, but I’m sure that we could come up with something that’s fair and equitable.

Again, my goal is to make this campaign beneficial to everyone involved, and this seems like a fair and efficient way of doing so. And as an added benefit, I believe giving equity to each of the parties involved will give us all just a little extra incentive to do our best work and make the campaign as successful as possible.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hope this proposal has given you a good idea of my vision for the campaign and the direction that I’d like to take it. This is a project that I’m very passionate about and that I really believe in. Hopefully some of my excitement and passion has shown through in this proposal.

And I feel like Art of Visuals is the perfect organization to team up with on this project. Your focus on community, and helping creators through inspirational and educational content is so closely aligned with my goals that I feel like it would be a perfect match.

Again, I appreciate everything you guys are doing at Art of Visuals, and I hope we can start working together soon.