Proposal
Prospect Heights School District 23
Fall 2020
INTRODUCTION
We’re currently planning to make a one-minute, narrated intro video called “Why We’re Proud to Be D23”, which will be focused on how the district has managed and adapted to remote instruction over the past six months. The purpose is to boost the public image by spotlighting the community’s adaptive spirit and innovative strengths during these challenging times. And we’ll be sharing all footage for this project with D23 for its lead members to edit and repurpose into further content as they wish.
CONTENT PACKAGE
60-second Intro Video
This can be written in one of two ways:
1) Interview Style – The simplest and most natural method would be to select a great spokesperson for the community and ask him/her a series of questions on the topic to then be edited together. The producer would take the lead on writing the questions and editing the interview.
2) Scripted – The other method, like the one seen here in Lake Forest’s example, would be to script the entire voiceover. However, this usually turns out better when A) the client writes at least the first draft to help point us in the right direction and specify a unique message & B) we hire a professional voiceover actor to deliver it.
Footage Logging
We’ll 1) cut up all the shots 2) organize them by location, activity and shot type, and 3) rank and identify the better half. If your team members will be editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, then we can just share our Premiere project file with you. If you’ll be using another non-linear editor like Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve (which you can download for free), then we can share a full resolution 4K .mov ProRes 422 file of all the footage along with an XML/EDL file, which will cut up all the footage exactly as we did in Premiere. Otherwise, if you’re using something basic like iMovie, then we can just provide the .mov file and a list of the main section time-codes for you to reference.
WHY ELEVATION POINT
School videos are what we do! If we’re not the best education content creator in the Midwest, then we’re not going to stop until we are! :) Check back in five years and I’m sure that map will be full.
Here is our Portfolio as well as all of our Client Testimonials to see the difference we’ve made so far.
Years Serving Education
Schools & Districts Served
School Videos Made
PRE-PRODUCTION
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” ~ Ben Franklin
One of the hardest parts of video production is just setting yourself up for success.  Luckily, we’re OCD here and have a weird passion for building beautiful spreadsheets! :) We SYSTEMize everything to Save Yourself Stress Time Energy & Money.
Consultation Sheet – We filled out yours already and started organizing & quantifying all the interviews, footage & production days we’ll need.
Production Schedule – Scheduling is highly collaborative and clients often need to book most of it themselves. So we need to work together through a simple interface and I think we’ve built the perfect solution! :)
PRODUCTION
We show up and record like everyone else, but there are a few things that might set us apart.
Highly Physical
There’s a time and a place for stiff, boring tripod shots, but we love adding life and energy to the camera a lot more. :) Watch any of our videos and you’ll see how much we move!
Small Crews
We often work alone as a one-man band, which will save you a lot of money in extra travel and crew costs.
Long Days
When you hire us for a full production day, you’ll get us for up to 12 hours (and you’re welcome to hand us off to other colleagues over that time). The point is, the more we pack in, the less we’ll have to travel out, and the more money you’ll save.
Wireless Monitor
Our cameras can connect to a smartphone app via WiFi so you can sit around the corner and watch everything we record.
Radios
Additionally, we can both have earpieces so you can speak up in real time if you have any thoughts or suggestions.
POST PRODUCTION
Them
Most editors cut the whole video together, offer 2-3 rounds of revisions, and then charge for more. But…
1) Why should you pay extra if the editor is way off?
2) Reworking the whole video can easily blow past deadlines.
3) No editor will ever know your community as well as you do. And the more decisions they make on their own and the more bold and artistic they get, the greater the chance you’ll have more notes for them in the end. So it’s as if this whole workflow encourages safe, bland & generic editing.
vs. Us
Every editor goes through a process, so why not include the client along the way? That’s what we do. We edit “Cut 1.0” and then send it over for feedback. If there are any notes, then we edit “Cut 1.1″… “1.2”… done – and we move on. Each round takes about a week and we’re usually done in a month. No surprises and no additional costs.
And that way you’re involved and can help us make far more unique & specific decisions that reflect your community. That’s what our clients always tell us – “Oh my gosh, this feels so much like our school!” – and it’s because we collaborated the whole way through.
Cut 1.0 - Story
To start off, we just cut the interview sound-bites together and make everyone say what we want them to say. :)
Cut 2.0 - Music
We think music is one of the most important parts and that’s why we’ve already searched through over 15,000 songs. We then whittle the very best down to the top 3-7 for you to pick.
To hear our broad range of musical styles, check out our Music Types webpage.
Cut 3.0 - Footage
Here we insert all the visuals. Up until this point, we’ve just been listening to audio so this is where you’ll really start to see it all come together.
Cut 4.0 - Graphics & Sound
We’ll add sound effects, do a custom opening and closing animation of your name & logo, and then add other lower-third (nameplate) graphics for all the interview subjects.
Cut 5.0 - Color Correction
This is where we white-balance all the footage, remove any color casts, and boost the overall contrast and saturation. We rarely receive any notes at this point so after the first cut here, we’re usually done!
DELIVERABLES
(included)
Videos
We record in 4K (3840 x 2160) and deliver all final videos in Full HD (1920 x 1080). That way we can zoom in and reframe shots in post production, which always looks a lot better.
It’s also estimated that less than 5% of YouTube videos are watched in 4K and that you need at least a 42-inch monitor to even see the difference. (…so just saying… there’s a lot of hype :)
Marketing GuideÂ
We also give each of our clients a free video marketing guide with 24 ways to share their content each year. It’s like a checklist to help you develop your own marketing strategy and maximize your exposure.
& ADD-ONS
(extra cost)
Closed Captions
85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound, so if you don’t have captions, you’re missing a lot of viewers. You can always make these yourself or we can create captions files for you to upload in 15-seconds or less!  ($100 per final minute of video)
Pictures Pack
We can pull 100-400 of the best stills from all of your original footage and then line them up in a Google Sheet for you to check off which ones you want processed. That way, you’re also getting a professional photographer at a fraction of the cost!  (starts at $400 for 40 pictures and then it’s $10/ea. after that)
Footage Logging
If anyone on your end would like to edit and work with the footage, then we can provide our organized and ranked work as well as apply basic color corrections to save a lot of time and trouble. ($300 per whole production day)
INVESTMENT
Based on our discussion and some of our possible options, here is a two-column quote with the differences highlighted.
Let me know if you’d like to adjust the line-items any further.
Low-End
This is what we discussed, a 1-minute video with no extra professionally recorded voiceover. And if you’d want a professional voiceover, it’d only be a $300 difference ($500 for the VO & then you’d save $200 on the interview gear rental).
High-End
We could certainly keep the video to 1-minute, but I’ve had a lot of clients want to add 30-60 seconds before during post production. And 90-seconds seems like the perfect length for this kind of a spot. (The Lake Forest video was 2-minutes.)
OUR FOCUS
More than a video, let’s make a difference.
We know professional videos can be expensive and we know what it’s like when budgets are tight, but more than the cheapest option here, we’re trying to be the best.
Because with all the content online today, it takes something pretty powerful to actually make a difference. We can speak from our own experience on this. We scroll past average-to-bad videos all the time. It’s the ones that really resonate or blow us away that make us want to share it or reach out to learn more.
Those are the kinds of videos that truly move people. They’re the ones that inspire real change. And while they take more time, effort and money to make, our clients always seem to think they’re worth it in the end.
– Kevin Domer
Partner & Producer
Elevation Point
OUR FOCUS
More than a video, let’s make a difference.
We know professional videos can be expensive and we know what it’s like when budgets are tight, but more than the cheapest option here, we’re trying to be the best.
Because with all the content online today, it takes something pretty powerful to actually make a difference. We can speak from our own experience on this. We scroll past average-to-bad videos all the time. It’s the ones that really resonate or blow us away that make us want to share it or reach out to learn more.
Those are the kinds of videos that truly move people. They’re the ones that inspire real change. And while they take more time, effort and money to make, our clients always seem to think they’re worth it in the end.
– Kevin Domer
Partner & Producer
Elevation Point