Marketing 1.09 | GiveShop Video: Our Story (behind-the-scenes)

In a previous newsletter, we shared our vision of creating a video to help tell the GiveShop story. The goal of the video is to help our community get to know who we are — the people behind GiveShop — and to hear from the team about their experience and motivations for working with GiveShop. We also wanted to share GiveShop’s mission, goals, and how we aim to achieve these goals.

In preparation for the video, we created a storyboard for the various scenes, including b-roll, and included prep questions for the team members. We also outlined COVID safety protocols for our team members. Here were the safety protocols we adhered to during filming to keep each other safe:

1. We asked team members to sign up for a time slot for their interviews so that we could limit the number of people onsite.
2. If team members were not feeling well, we would ask for them to cancel.
3. Each of the team members were required to wear masks on the day of the filming unless they were actively being interviewed or filmed. In one instance, we filmed two team members working side-by-side without masks but only because they were already living in the same household.
4. We tried our best to keep distance with each other as much as possible during filming.

We interviewed and filmed our team members over a course of three weekends. Our interviews included members across each of our teams: UX Research, Product Design, Development, Business, Marketing, and our two Co-founders. We heard personal stories from our team about their backgrounds and how/why they got involved. Team members also shared about their experience working with GiveShop, their favorite features, and what they envision for GiveShop. It was inspiring to hear their stories and the impact they want to make.

Harry Ng (Co-Founder & CEO, GiveShop) shared how he came up with the idea for GiveShop, his experiences, and what he hopes to solve through our integrated giving platform. Daisy Tam (Co-Founder & CMO, GiveShop) shared about GiveShop and how this unique idea brought together a community of collaborators that is now the backbone of GiveShop.

Our Video Producer has since been busy reviewing and editing the many hours of video footage over the last several weeks and we definitely learned a lot over the course of the project. Here are some things we learned:

• It is important to have an experienced video producer to help create high-quality, professional videos. An experienced video producer can advise the right lighting, sound, and angles to use in your video.
• Having the right equipment (lights, cameras, lenses, microphones) will make the quality of your video that much better. A camera with a good depth of field makes a big difference.
• When filming videos on a low budget, be creative with what you have. You can create extraordinary backgrounds using props that you already have. Use plants, natural colors, a simple bookshelf, and some nice seating.
• Give your interviewees prep questions to think through ahead of time, but make it conversational on camera. Allow your interviewees to tell their story.

We can’t wait to share our team’s videos with you on our YouTube channel over the next several weeks and months so you can hear their stories. Meanwhile, we are still working on piecing together the final compilation of clips from the various videos for our highlights reel/trailer, which will be released at a later time.