Whitecaps 7PM Video
When our colleague Carson Ting announced that he would be working with the Whitecaps on a fundraising campaign all centred around celebrating the amazing 7PM Moments happening around the city we jumped at the opportunity to get involved!! It felt like exactly the kind of project we needed during these unusual and unsettling times of COVID-19 - something that we could do to give back to our city, an inspiring and community based feel good story and a good mix of production challenges of figuring out how to make a video during social distancing restrictions.
Carson was illustrating an artwork print of the 7PM Moments - capturing the essence of a community coming together in their own ways to support and thank the essential workers keeping our city running. We wanted to create a video that captured the inspiration behind the print and tied the artwork itself in so people got excited and inspired to buy the print.
While Carson got busy illustrating we quickly assembled our super star team to come up with the production plan. Huge thanks to Leah Gregg & Ryan Leeson for jumping in on strategy & script!
Tossaint Ricketts from the Whitecaps came onboard and we had to quickly compile instructions for him on how to film and record all of his own video and audio files from his home using just his phone, a plug in Lav mic and some conference call Direction from Hubert Kang. At the same time we put out a call through our channels for people to record footage of themselves participating in the 7PM cheer. And on top of that our audio wizard, Mike Southworth, started work on capturing audio of the cheering from his home for his sound design mix.
We quickly started to see videos pouring in from across the city - kids playing instruments, people cheering and singing and even dogs howling. We knew that this was an exceptional time in our cities history to capture in a piece of art. Mike started assembling our edit - peppering in Carson’s characters throughout various scenes. And then we topped it off with an incredibly moving song composed by Mike Southworth featuring the voices of Hilary Grist & Dawn Pemberton. After a final touch of colour grading from our superstar Dave Tomiak we were finished!
This project was a real honour to be apart of. It reminded us that there are always creative solutions to various production challenges and that capturing real and authentic moments of true joy and celebration trump the perfect camera, or set styling or lighting plan. Thank you so much to Terry Dee, Jon Rees and Victoria Singh at the Whitecaps for trusting in us and letting us take the reins with the creative on this one!
If you want to contribute and own a piece of artwork to remember when our city came together in a million little different ways during a really weird and challenging time then please go to It Takes a Village and buy a copy of the print. Proceeds will go to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.
Finally, we want to give a HUGE thank you to our rockstar team who all donated 100% of their time and resources to make this project happen.
Whitecaps - Terry Dee, Jon Rees & Victoria Singh
Director/DP - Hubert Kang
Producer - Amy Jones
Illustrator - Carson Ting
Writer - Ryan Leeson
Strategist - Leah Gregg
Graphic Designer/Illustrator Asst - Aiken Lao
Editor/Animator/Music Composition/Sound Mix & Master - Mike Southworth
Song Performed by: Mike Southworth, Hilary Grist & Dawn Pemberton
Colourist: Dave Tomiak
Lead Actor/VO Talent: Tossaint Ricketts
Video Clip Contributors: Carson Ting, Byron Kopman, Mustaali Raj, Hubert Kang, Gavin Kennedy, Leah Gregg, Mike Southworth, Bree Sinnott, Alex Beim, Steven Errico, Claire Villet, Andrew Shirley, Raffy Espiritu, Doug Schier, Carlo Wein, RJ Sauer & Stu Washington.