Creativity | Community | Clients: 3C’s Case Study

This is a 3C’s Case Study examining the needs of our client Clemson University Engineering, Computing, and Applied Sciences (CECAS) and how to use storytelling to achieve the enrollment and awareness goals.

In this 3C’s Case Study, we take a look at one of our most dynamic projects. Using a blend of documentary and cinematic storytelling techniques, we helped Clemson University’s College of Engineering with their recruitment and outreach initiatives.

Client Overview

The Public Relations, Outreach and Media Opportunities (PROMO) group has long been the creative fulfillment team for CECAS. Through various intersecting initiatives, the PROMO group works directly with the Dean to expand and improve the marketing and public outreach of the college. The PROMO group draws upon the diverse talents of it’s members, who utilize equally diverse fields such as communication, technology and media to fulfill their passion of promoting the college and its departments.

Goal Of Project

The goal of this project was to visually showcase a department of the College of Engineering for promotional purposes. The PROMO group first partnered with Rettew Creative to perform a year long audit to identify creative narratives that would appeal to multiple target audiences for the purpose of increasing enrollment and providing value to the engineering degree.

Rettew Creative identified numerous storylines including a water project in Haiti spearheaded by Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries (CEDC). This group appealed to us because of the amazing work they were doing in regards to water purification efforts in a small village of Haiti. Since we were producing a cinematic piece, we believed the rich landscape of Haiti and the nature of the work involved would offer us ample visual opportunities. Bottomline, the main goal was to create a visual story showcasing Clemson students working in Haiti as they continued the water purification efforts. We wanted to capture a theme, the steps Clemson students were taking to change the world.

Creativity | Community | Clients: 3C’s Case Study

This is a 3C’s Case Study examining the needs of our client DCEC and how to use storytelling and video to achieve the fundraising goals.

Background

The Developmental Center for Exceptional Children (DCEC) was founded in 1974 by Kristina Radcliff. Kristina saw a desperate need in her community and created DCEC to provide services to children often overlooked or ignored. In the days before children with special needs and disabilities received services in the public school system, DCEC provided care and instruction to children from birth to age thirteen.

Since relocating to the Westside Community Center in 2014, enrollment has more than tripled. DCEC has grown to become a vital part of the greater Anderson County community. DCEC's outreach efforts have created strong partnerships and engagement from the community, and continue to grow and be holistic in the services provided to these exceptional children.

Goal of Project

The goal of this video project, to create a video showcasing the story inside DCEC with the narrative highlighting the parent's perspective. The second goal of the video was to showcase the inside of the facility, creating a virtual tour while showcasing the interaction between the children, the staff, and the parents. Bottom-line, create a compelling video story to be used as a fundraising tool during the 2019 “Moms & Mimosas” event; where roughly 300 women from the community would attend and potentially give.

Production

This project was a simple video production process were all the content was captured over two, separate half-days. The first on-site half-day production was to capture the interviews with the parents. Since this video was focused on fundraising, it was important to keep the narrative focused on the parents who could provide third party testimonials speaking directly to potential funders and the community at-large.

The interviews were captured using a two camera approach:

1) Canon EOS c100 - Interview camera with boom microphone

2) Canon EOS 5Dmkiv - Second angle camera for a close-up of the face for expressions.

The "broll" footage was captured during a second, half-day production. This allowed us to capture the parents and the children interacting with the staff. We used a small DJI OSMO+ so that the camera would not overwhelm the children. Given the fact these children had certain differing abilities, we did not want them to focus on large production cameras. So we chose the DJI OSMO+ as a portable camera, stabilized providing a beautiful 4K image and smooth movement.

We ultimately edited this video project using the Adobe CC leveraging Premiere Pro, Audition, and Media Encoder. This project was produced in 1080p and delivered online and for an in-person event.

Results

This video project was unveiled at our annual spring fundraiser in May 2019 – “Moms & Mimosas”. This was DCECE's largest attendance since the initial event creation 4 years prior. An audience of approximately 300 professional women attended the 2019 brunch, fashion show and auction. It is estimated that 25 - 30 percent were first time attendees. The 2019 event raised 34% percent more in revenue than the previous year (approximately $7,500).

Creativity | Community | Clients: 3C’s Case Study

This is a 3C’s Case Study examining the importance of empathy when managing relationships during this stressful time period of COVID-19 and the global pandemic.

Background

Since the middle part of March 2020, we have been committed to remain open, serve our clients, and become more intentional on the way we communicant with all our business relationships. These relationships have been the core reason why we have been able to stay open as a business, serve our clients and our community. 

This commitment has come with many challenges which includes many of these relationships have experienced a heightened level of stress. Let's face it, this time period has been hard! Many businesses have closed, many people have lost jobs, many people have gotten extremely sick, and we are all stressed. 

This heightened stress has impacted how we communicate with each other, especially given the lack of in-person communication. We are now dependent upon virtual means from the asynchronous technology like email, testing, and social media; and the synchronous technologies like ZOOM, Teams, phone calls, etc. Distance has been put between business relationships and distance has created more tension on an already tense time period. 

This podcast episode is dedicated to this discussion. Bobby Rettew and Mark Berry talk about how they are managing their own stress, communication with their partners and client, along with their complete focus of making sure everything we deliver is beyond expectations.

Creativity | Community | Clients: 3C’s Case Study

This is a 3C’s Case Study examining the creative approach when capturing real estate images for Cromer and Company's feature property listings.

Background

Cromer and Company is a real estate company located in Anderson, SC. Their mission is "dedicated to providing excellent, professional, honest and responsible service," with a commitment to "exceed expectations and communicate at the highest level, while continuously growing an energetic, top producing Real Estate company." Cromer and Company provides real estate services to both the buyer and the seller with property listings in Anderson and Pickens Counties. 

Rettew Creative was excited to partner with Cromer and Company, providing real estate imaging for their property listing needs. Bobby Rettew grew up watching first hand the real estate business with his grandfather Joe Bridwell, who served the upstate of South Carolina for over 50 years. Bobby spent years watching his grandfather representing his clients providing concierege level of service, whether they were part of a corporate relocation, buying or selling their homes, buying a second home, or taking part in a complex real estate transaction. Bobby learned from a young age what it takes to sell a home and how to showcase a quality property listing.

Goal of Project

Cromer and Company asked us to capture high quality photographic and arial imaging for their premiere listings. Rettew Creative was excited to expand their services into this new vertical, offering high quality real state photography, aerial photography, and video to this business community. 

The goal for these projects was simple. Capture every angle of a property showcasing the value, warmth, and location for a potential buyer to see every angle through an interactive, online experience. 

An example property listing was a lake property on 115 Barrett Circle, Anderson, SC. Rettew Creative captured the interior, exterior, and arial images to showcase the relationship between the property and the lake. 

Production

Rettew Creative approaches each property with two people and three cameras; capturing high quality, raw images. 

Cameras:

Canon EOS 5Dmkiii - 24 Megapixel RAW

Canon EOS 5Dmkiv - 30 Megapixel RAW

DJI Mavic Pro - 12 Megapixel RAW for Aerial Imaging 

Lenses:

Wide Angle Images - CANON 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM EF Lens

Medium Perspective Images - Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM EF Lens

Zoom for Tight Perspective Images - Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM EF Lens

For the 115 Barrett Circle property, we spent one hour on site with the seller. As as relationship focused business, we were able to represent Cromer and Company with courtesy and professionalism. We communicated our commitment to capturing the high quality images and spent time with the seller making sure their vision of the property was well represented. 

Rettew Creative provides a semi-private online portfolio for the client to review the images. This allows the client to navigate to a specific web link to review the images and also download images needed for their listing. This portfolio uses a semi-private link only allowing the individual who has a special code matched with their email address to download the images. 

Finally, Rettew Creative maintains a FAA License for drone operation and General Liability Insurance as required when flying a drone commercially.

Results

The results are not only showcased in the images we captured; also the fact that the 115 Barrett Circle property was under contact one day after the property was listed. 

We hope you take a few minutes to review the images!

Links for Review:

Listing: https://www.cromerandcompany.com/idx/listing/SC-UMLS/20227687/115-Barrett-Circle-Anderson-SC-29621

Property: https://photos.rettewcreative.com/cromerandcompany115barrettcircleandersonsc/

Background

Since 2015, Homes of Hope has allowed Rettew Creative to help capture and create stories for their yearly fundraising gala in May of each year. Each year, we produced three video stories to be shown to a live audience with the sole purpose of sharing their story for fundraising. Each year, they raise more and more money to serve their mission and vision: "Provide opportunities for generational change throughout South Carolina. We do this in two ways, Rebuilding Communities and Rebuilding Lives."

Men's Development- The Men’s Workforce Development Program is a voluntary one-year residential job training and mentoring program for men overcoming drug and alcohol addictions. The interns live and learn at Gideon’s House, a historical home in downtown Greenville, SC. Men are equipped with construction-related job skills through classroom training and through the actual construction of our LoCAL Homes. Each participant graduates with a certification in Basic Residential Construction (BRC) through Greenville Technical College's Quick Jobs program.

Affordable Housing - The goal is to provide safe, affordable, and energy-efficient housing for low-to-moderate income families and/or individuals. Families without a safe place to call home lack an essential element that must exist. Through our four housing strategies, we aim to meet the housing needs of South Carolina families.

Goal of Project

At the beginning of 2020, we once again partner to tell three stories for their gala only to re-vision how to deliver these stories. In April of 2020, Homes of Hope made the decision to post-pone their May event because of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic. As the event was postponed to Jun 18th in the hopes to have an in-person event, the decision was made to go completely virtual. 

Rettew Creative was asked to partner with Homes of Hope to re-imagine this event for a virtual experience. We then began to work with Homes of Hope to create a virtual gala to be delivered at 6pm on June 18th as a Facebook Premiere event. Facebook Premieres allows a branded page to schedule and debut videos as Live moments. After the broadcast, the video will be saved on your Page. A Premiere has to be scheduled at least 10 minutes in advance. 

Production

We have helped numerous large, medium, and small organizations to Live Stream events; yet this approach allowed our team to create pre-produce a 30 minute virtual gala "show". This "show" would be uploaded a few days before the Facebook Premiere alerting the fans on their brand page to be notified of this event and allows Homes of Hope to promote the event for a specific time and event. Once the Facebook Premiere video goes live, it appears like a live stream allowing people to interact with this video the same way they would with a live video stream. 

We worked with Homes of Hope to plan a 30 minute show production the included the 3 videos we originally pre-produced for the live event. These three video stories included:

Introduction to Homes of Hope: https://youtu.be/pWu4oTNGonE

Men's Development: https://youtu.be/z5q72cFd5yo

Affordable Housing Client: https://youtu.be/xiirMvf-bfA

These videos were showcased in the 30 minute show, produced to walk the audience through the whole vision of Homes of Hope. This 30 minute show featured an Emcee who guided the show through the Homes of Hope Training Facility, an actual home they have built where two of the staff members gave an update on their programs, and a final "call to action" by the CEO asking people to give to the organization. 

Podcast Episode

This podcast episode looks back at the production to create this virtual gala and how Rettew Creative partnered with Homes of Hope in-order to bring this vision to life in less than a month.

Background

Storefront Stories was started as an initiative to help businesses in downtown Anderson, SC tell their story during the COVID-19 crisis. After the Governor of South Carolina issued these two following orders in response to the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, we wanted to find a way to support local businesses. 

March 31 - All nonessential businesses to close by 5 p.m. The order covers barbershops and beauty salons, fitness centers, bowling alleys, theaters, arcades, museums, sports that share equipment or cause people to come within six feet of each other, spectator sports, and indoor children's play areas, excluding child care centers.

April 6 - Work or stay home order given. It adds the potential for arrests of violators.

We never imagined what we would find when we started the Storefront Stories project! It has been an amazing journey since we recorded the first one on Tuesday, April 22nd.

Goal of Project

In close to one month since we launched the sign-up form on StorefrontStories.com; we started with this idea of capturing Downtown Anderson business stories sharing their experiences during COVID-19, a global pandemic, and how it has impacted our downtown Anderson main street.|

What we found…is amazing!

Many businesses have been forced to close. Many have tried to find ways to keep moving forward. Many have taken the time to refocus. And many have taken the time to even remodel and rebrand.

Each business has experience this time period differently and it has been amazing the vulnerability shown by the business owners sharing tears of joy, sadness, and gratitude for this community that they love.

To date, we have had 23 businesses sign-up. We have captured and produced 16 of those business stories and we are still working to schedule each one that has filled out the form on StorefrontStories.com!

Production

To keep this project simple and to protect both the businesses and our team at Rettew Creative, we had to create a production process to allow us to do the following:

Capture multiple Storefront Stories in a single day.

Allow us to capture interviews using social distancing guidelines. 

Feature the business owner in front of their business. 

Ask three simple questions to streamline the video editing process

Capture content in 1080p since the videos would be used on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

We used a two camera approach to capture the the business owner interview, allowing for simple editing when creating a final video. We also used a boom microphone so we would not have to put a wireless lapel microphone on the person. Finally we captured a high quality image of the business owner in front of the business as a thumbnail when sharing on social media. 

Results

So far, we have produced 16 different Storefront Stories videos, uploaded to YouTube and placed on the StorefrontStories.com website. We have also shared those 16 Storefront Stories on social media including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As of July 2, 2020 the Storefront Stories project has reached 39,932 people and has experienced 14,494 video views. 

Podcast Episode

This podcast episode discusses this process and the community impact from this project.

Background

The Tigers United University Consortium was initiated by Clemson University President James P. Clements, who also serves on the Global Tiger Initiative Council. Comprised of business and conservation leaders, this international council assists the Global Tiger Forum in saving remaining populations of wild tigers, with a goal of doubling tiger numbers in the wild by 2022, which is the next Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar.

Through the consortium, the four universities combine their expertise in academic disciplines important to tiger conservation and protection—wildlife management, engineering, environmental science, conservation social science, veterinary medicine, communications, and eco-tourism, to name a few. With more than one university approaching the problem, the odds of success increase.

Goal of Project

We were contact by Tigers United University Consortium to create a video showcasing their passion in saving remaining populations of wild tigers. Rettew Creative's was contacted to help create a video to explain this goal so they could show potential donors, external stakeholders, and potential partners why this initiative was critical.

Production

All of the content for this project was already captured including the interviews, broll footage, and imagery. Most of the broll footage was captured overseas using prosumer cameras and the interview was captured using Clemson University Video Production Services. Rettew Creative had to review all the content, create a narrative, and produce a video within a month.

Podcast Episode

This podcast episode reviews the background of the project and the creativity behind the post-production and editing process to create a final video for their fundraising purposes.

Link to video project: https://youtu.be/CWMHj3KxRVI

Link to Tigers United University Consortium: https://www.clemson.edu/tigers-always/consortium/index.html