It’s been almost three years since we worked on this project with Plymouth Meeting Friends School. It’s funny because I grew up right around the corner from the school and was always curious about what was behind the walls. My curiosity seems to have paid off, as we were able to work on a couple of videos for Plymouth Meeting Friends School in the fall of 2023.
But what made this project especially interesting was the situation the school was in at the time. They didn’t have a dedicated marketing director, they needed stronger content, and they were working with a digital marketing agency to drive more traffic to the website.
The missing piece was having the right content there once people arrived.
How the Project Started
The conversation actually started in the spring of 2023. I was contacted through the Inspired School Marketers Filmmakers and Photographers Guide.
The school was in dire need of some marketing content. They were getting help from a digital marketing agency that I knew of, but they needed content that could help turn that traffic into conversions once prospective families reached the website.
One of the challenges was that they didn’t have a marketing director. They had an admissions director, but for the most part, marketing responsibilities were shared by the board, who I worked with closely, and the head of school.
You might think that would make a video project more difficult to coordinate, but it really didn’t. The team was organized, responsive, and did a great job planning everything on their end. That ended up playing a huge role in how smoothly the production went.
Finding the Story
One of the biggest things we needed to home in on was that Plymouth Meeting Friends School is a pre-K through grade 8 school.
Families can sometimes take those foundational years for granted, especially when so much attention is placed on the high school and college years. We wanted both videos to showcase why those earlier years matter and the importance of giving children a strong foundation.
That became an important part of how we approached the interviews and the B-roll we needed to capture.
Diving Into the Deliverables
We focused on two primary videos: a general admissions video and a social-emotional learning video.
The general admissions video was pretty straightforward, utilizing interviews with teachers, parents, and alumni to help tell the larger story of the school. Our pre-production process went super smooth and we were able to really focus on what is the true value proposition of the school and why families should care.
We probably filmed about 22 different interviews, which was intentional. We wanted flexibility in terms of whose voices we could utilize in the final videos, but we were also thinking beyond those initial deliverables.
Capturing that many interviews gave us a much larger library of content to pull from for future projects and gave the school more flexibility if something needed to change down the road.
That ended up becoming important a few years later.
Two Days on Campus
We were on campus for about two full days.
Day one was heavily focused on interviews. Day two was focused more on B-roll, and we snagged two more interviews at the very end of the day.
Sometimes, with shoots like this, a third day is needed. In this case, the planning was so good, thanks to our friends at Plymouth Meeting Friends, that we were able to be really intentional about what we were filming.
Instead of showing up and figuring out what looked interesting, we already knew the stories we needed to support visually.
We also made sure everyone who wanted to be on camera, or needed to be on camera for interviews, was able to film during that mid-October session.
In two days, we were able to capture roughly 22 interviews, the B-roll we needed, and enough material to support the two primary videos while also giving the school content that could potentially be used down the line.
Finding the Right Interview Space
One of the production challenges was figuring out where we were going to film all of those interviews.
The classrooms weren’t going to be a good option because they were being used for classes, and we didn’t want production to become disruptive to the school day.
We ended up utilizing the library, which turned out to be a great interview space. We were able to control and manipulate the sunlight coming into the room when needed, allowing us to create a consistent look across the interviews without interfering with classrooms.
Sometimes the best production solution isn’t the most complicated one. It’s finding a space that looks good, gives us control, and allows the rest of the school to continue operating normally.
Creating Videos That Could Last
The final result was two videos that could live primarily on the school’s website while also being repurposed through email and lead nurturing.
But one of the more interesting parts of this project didn’t happen until later.
As the years went on, we ended up needing to replace some interviews, whether because someone had left the school or because we simply needed a different voice in the video.
Instead of having to recreate the entire project, we were able to make those updates efficiently and quickly.
That’s one of the benefits of thinking beyond the immediate deliverable when you’re planning a video project. The goal isn’t just to create something that works on launch day. Whenever possible, we want to give schools content and footage that can continue working for them and be adapted as things change.
Check out the videos here.
https://vimeo.com/899609679
https://vimeo.com/899609834
One of My Biggest Takeaways
It’s always fun to work with small schools that have a big mission, and Plymouth Meeting Friends School was a great example of that.
One of my biggest takeaways from this project actually had very little to do with cameras or production.
Plymouth Meeting Friends didn’t have a large marketing department coordinating everything behind the scenes. What they did have was a team that was organized, responsive, and willing to take action.
That allowed us to capture roughly 22 interviews, lots of B-roll, and enough material to create the original videos while giving the school flexibility to update them years later.
A lot of what determines whether a project succeeds happens before we ever show up on campus.
If you want to chat about how video can help your school, feel free to reach out to me at joe@monzomediapro.com
