Project Description

Approach Dementia Support creates in-depth charity video to wow attendees and encourage donations at fundraising event

Fundraising events like black-tie galas are amazing ways for charities to raise money for their cause.

And after putting all that effort into selling the tickets, while you’re there you obviously want to get your impact across to encourage donations.

One way many charities do that is by getting their CEO / head honcho to give a speech about what they’re up to.

Approach Dementia Support went a different route. They asked VideoHQ to create an in-depth video to play at the event; featuring staff, volunteers, carers, and service users.

Hearing directly from such a wide range of people has a massive impact.

What was the pre-production process like

At VideoHQ, we don’t really work with scripted videos. We prefer using on-the-ground interviews to create engaging videos, and to help people come across really naturally on camera.

With that in mind, it was more important to use the pre-production meeting to absolutely nail the messaging of the video, as that would determine the questions I’d ask carers and volunteers at the various groups.

For example, at the Independent Activity Sessions, carers can drop off their loved ones, and get three hours respite to themselves. This was highlighted as a key message, so I made absolutely certain to ask carers about this during the interviews.

I then wrote out a series of questions I could ask people, to help convey these messages.

What was the filming process like

I filmed four different Approach Dementia Support groups across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. These were:

• Independent Activity Group at the Douglas Macmillan Hospice in Trentham
• Stoke Memories Session at Ricardo’s, at Stoke City’s bet365 Stadium
• Stoke activity session at Ricardo’s
• Carers Support Group at Biddulph Town Hall

At each of these sessions, I filmed loads of the action, as well as gathered interviews with those leading, and also attending the sessions.

I didn’t want to interrupt the sessions too much – so by and large, I used my long range zoom lens, which allows me to get super close up shots from a good distance away.

What was the editing process like

I saw this one volunteer at all of the different sessions, and at the last one she said to me: “you must have loads of footage. How on earth do you cut it all down?”

And she hit the nail on the head for this editing process!

When I loaded all of my footage into my Final Cut Pro editing software, I had an hour and a half of interview footage!! To put that into perspective, the final video had to be less than five minutes.

So it goes without saying that the first task was to scour all that footage for the absolute best moments.

That took me down to about 20 minutes – so still some way to go! At this point, it’s more a case of removing any repetition – for example, two carers talked about why respite is important. So who said it best? You’re on a limited timescale with lots to cover, so everyone needs to say something different.

Once the interviews had been chopped down to about eight minutes duration, I put them into an order which told the story in a flowing and cohesive way (you don’t want the narrative jumping all over the place!)

I then added footage from the sessions which really illustrated what was being said. So the support staff talked about how important the singing and dancing is, so obviously at this point I showed that taking place.

Given this was to be played at an event, I subtitled the finished video. Firstly, it’s great for accessibility. But also, you never know how good the speakers will be at a venue, so you don’t want all your efforts going to waste because people can’t hear what’s being said.

I’m truly proud of how this video turned out; in just five minutes, it says so much about the amazing work Approach Dementia Support does for people across Staffordshire who are living with dementia, or caring for someone.

What the client says…

“From the first meeting, it was clear that Hannah was engaged with the brief and knew what we were looking for, asking important questions on the message we wanted to give.

We felt happy and confident to trust her with the filming and the interviews, and we are delighted with the professional results.

We used the video at our recent gala dinner event to a great response and we’ll be using it going forward on our website and social media. Many thanks to Hannah for doing a great job at capturing what we do!”

• Paul Webster, Head of Charity for Approach Dementia Support.