Description:
Each year the Schweitzer Fellowship of Baltimore provides stipends to graduate students who want to work with at-risk communities in the city. Each class of graduate students in the program work together on a group project in addition to their hours of work at a local urban non-profit. They’re goal for the group project was to produce a marketing video that would communicate how the Fellowship impacts Baltimore.

Obstacles:
Coordinating a dozen interviews and programs across the city with very busy students and staff was quite a tough proposition. Finding a common thread to tell the unique stories while also giving a broad view of the organization was also a complicated process. No budget limited the process.

Solutions:
One graduate student really took on the mantle of directing this piece. She was able to coordinate my shooting schedule with the students and take care of the administrative details. Together we decided to use Albert Schweitzer’s quote about making his life his argument as the common thread for the story. We outlined the video with four concepts—Impact on the Fellow, Impact on the Community, Impact on the Individuals and Impact on the Future along with a short opening to tell a bit of history about Baltimore, Schweitzer and the Fellowship.

Favorite Element:
Opening each segment with one of the fellows explaining how they were trying to live out their argument with their lives was a great way to express the Schweitzer philosophy. My favorite story was with Pooja and her work with middle school girls teaching them about domestic violence. The girls clearly learned from their experience and were completely genuine.

* We won a Silver Telly Award for this video. Considering we produced this video for free, it was especially fulfilling to receive this honor. Click Here