Film & Company produced ShareFest wins 2009 Gold Ava Award. The Ava Awards just released the 2009 winners in their annual international media competition. There were almost 1700 entries from the US and other countries in this year’s competition.
ShareFest is actually 4 videos: a recruiting video for pastors, a long and short promo video for churches and a long video that tells the ShareFest story looking forward and outward. Primary use for this last version is with people from other communities who have heard about ShareFest and are interested in bringing the event to their community.
The long video is approximately 7:45 long with a common body and customized endings for use with different audiences and different calls to action. The short version is about 3:30.
In the late 1990’s pastors in the Little Rock area came together to pray about what they could do for their city and its needs. That birthed the idea to gather volunteers and organizations for a day of massive outreach in the city. ShareFest was born (sharefest.org). 2008 marked the 10th annual ShareFest in Little Rock and the folks at the Nehemiah Group, who organize the event each year and get churches and organizations involved, wanted not just a promo, but something that would capture the story of 10 years here in Little Rock, and reflecting how the event has spread around the US and internationally.
When I was approached to capture that story, I knew that there was a wealth of material to draw from. I spent many hours in research, locating old footage and stills and capturing it onto hard drives for editing. Footage formats ranged from Beta to miniDV, DVCAM and DVCPRO to VHS and DVD.
The archive footage also included interviews from years past that we used clips from. A series of new interviews were shot with several key people who have been involved in ShareFest over many years. I was also able to interview a pastor from Guatemala City who has initiated ShareFest there, and get footage from their first event.
For added punch, I turned to a narrator team, rather than a single voice. Jim and Carol Shores of Acts of Renewal (actsofrenewal.com) are accomplished actors and added a whole new layer of energy to the narration.
In the end, the result was a video that is a fitting tribute to the original ShareFest’s 10th anniversary and the difference it has made in the lives of countless people in every city where it has been held, as well as an engaging call for viewers to get involved.
Receiving an award for this video is an honor and recognition of the care and attention we put into every media product that is created at Film & Company.
In addition to this blog post, you can also watch the video on the Film & Company portfolio webpage and on our demo DVD.
Claes
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