Producing a Fundraiser Gala Video: Chase’s Place

Galas are a big occasion for many non-profits, as its their chance to bring in large donors, with big checkbooks and celebrate the work they’ve been doing all year long. We’ve helped many organizations in producing video content to be played at their gala celebrations and raise vitals funds for their initiatives. Let’s walk through the video production process of how we created this year’s gala fundraiser video for Chase’s Place.

As a company, we love working with charities and non-profits. These organizations have the same needs as for-profit businesses, in regards to media and content creation. Often they have limited resources to do it. Most importantly, we thrive on the chance to create an impactful story and messaging to help an organization helping those in need. When an organization like Chase’s Place reaches out and trusts us with their problem, we’re ready and excited to create the solution.

This was our second year working with Chase’s Place, a special needs school, based in Dallas, Texas. They loved the project that we produced last year and wanted to take it one step further with a fresh idea. Our approach last year was to follow a single student and the impact that the school and music class has had on their development. Our goal was to tell most of the story through the non-interview footage and then fill in the gaps with sit-down interviews. This worked well and we were able to tell a very impactful story about the school by honing in on the experience of a single student, an analogy to Chase’s Place’s approach to education.

Concept

Chase's Place - Uniquely Talented
Previous year’s video, Chase’s Place 2024

We noticed in years past, much of the testimonials and interviews involve the parents or adults in the students’ lives. While the perspective of a parent with a child that has special needs is unique, in the case of Chase’s Place, its easy to empathize with. We wanted to hear from people close to the students who isn’t heard from that often, but is impacted all the same, siblings of students at Chase’s Place. The idea was that we’d hear unique perspectives and struggles that parents would not have to directly experience. These perspectives are just as important as a parent’s, but rarely heard.

Often, a client will come to us with a very specific project or concept. We’ll come to the table with some ideas to make it fun, creative, and engaging, but ultimately it resembles exactly what the client had in mind for their video project. The beauty of working with Chase’s Place in creating their video content is that they allow to take risks and explore narratives creatively. This can be a double edged sword. My coming to the table with a unique idea and presentation, Colectivo is uniquely invested in the project and its execution. Honestly, its a relationship we are excited to have, due to being the loose reins of the project. Conversely, we still need to deliver a compelling and impactful video for their event. All of the weight is on us to complete the project and deliver on the concept.

Filming

Working closely with Chase’s Place, 4 siblings from 3 families were identified and chosen to be the subjects of the video documentary. The children ranged from elementary age to seniors in high school, to ensure the experiences would be similar but have variation. We spent a single day conducting these interviews but also setting time aside to capture dramatic portraits of each sibling with their special needs brother or sister. The goal was to have these shots signify the connection and bond the siblings share now that they’re attending a school that caters to their needs.

The idea to film all of the interviews on a backdrop came from 2 places. 1. We wanted a dramatic enough setting to convey the weight of their experiences and stories to be shared. 2. In a practical sense, we didn’t have the time or budget to film in 3 separate locations. A staged interview setting solved both of these problems.

Our second shoot day consisted of only b-roll to coincide with the interview segments. We film at the Chase’s Place Dallas location, showing what school is really like for each of the students there and the activities they engage in on a daily basis. Lastly, we spent a couple of hours with each student in their home environment, to showcase the interactions the families really have at home. We needed to capture the progress the siblings were describing and how much family life has improved since their siblings attendance at Chase’s Place.

Post Production

Post production is where the stories are brought together to form a final cohesive story structure. This is honestly the most challenging portion of the documentary style production process. With each interview being about one hour long, we had roughly 4 hours of footage to comb through to condense into a seven minute finished video. There were so many great sound bites and stories that had to be cut for time or that didn’t quite fit the story beats we needed. Each subject had unique but shared experiences, we wish we could fit it all in. Ultimately, we settled on a story structure; Introduction to the subjects> Introduction to their relation to Chase’s Place> struggles with having a special needs siblings> life of their sibling before Chase’s Place> How Chase’s Place has changed their sibling and school life > How much life has improved on the other side.

Release

On of our favorite aspects of Gala videos is their presentation. Rarely are we producing videos to be presented directly to a live audience, but rather consumed online. At big galas, there could be hundreds of people present, and are a captive audience to the screening. The setting works in two parts for a video presentation.

The audience you’re presenting to is not only a captive audience, but their engaged in the story and the organization that’s presenting the video. While we want the video to stand on its own, there is a shared knowledge base and understanding of what the video will be about. The attendees will also be interested in watching the video and engaging with ideas and stories presented. This allows us, as a video production company, to tell a story catered to this audience, rather than the general public. We know that they’ll watch the video in its entirety rather than clicking “next” as soon as they get bored.

Secondly, this allows us to hit a higher run-time than most of our other work allows. Specifically for gala presentations, we aim for the 5-7 minute mark. This is usually the right amount of time the attendees feel comfortable watching and not feeling overly preachy or getting restless. We’re not trying to tell a full-length documentary here, but that extended run-time allows the story to tell more details, nuance, and breath more than a video project under 2 minutes (or even 30 seconds).

By all accounts, after the video was played at this year’s Chase’s Place Gala, there wasn’t a dry eye in the venue. Overall, the video exceeded expectations. We are proud of the story we told, the impact it had, and helping out an organization like Chase’s Place. We can’t wait to tackle next year’s and have 365 days to find a way to top this year’s.

Have a gala or big event coming up? Let’s create an impactful video like we’ve done for Chase’s Place and many other. Give us a shout now!