WHITE PAPER: Foot Locker LEED 2023 Black History Month Campaign

WHITE PAPER (noun): a persuasive report or guide that typically provides in-depth background information on a specific topic or issue and highlights the features of a solution through a particular philosophy.

Introduction

Consider this a CREATIVE WHITE PAPER dissecting our recent client project for Foot Locker.

We were tapped for this project specifically because of our previous successful work with the client as well as our unique and nuanced approach to telling Black stories. From a big-picture perspective, the client and our team were aligned on the project vision from the beginning, which is huge.

As the Director and EP on this project, I often have the first preliminary conversations with the client to align on the general parameters of the project and then I’ll bring in our Production Manager whose job is to lead client communications from that point and ensure our project gets to the finish line.

Project Outline and Deliverables

Every project is different and it’s important that the content deliverables you come up with for your project ladder up and supplement what ever overarching story you’re trying to tell. Don’t just make things because they’re trendy — make them because it makes sense specifically for your story or project.

For this project, we went back and forth with the client to decide on exactly what pieces of content our agency would be responsible for concepting, producing, and delivering. We established that we were going to create a video series and we used The Shop as a loose reference for format style and how we wanted the conversations to flow amongst our guests. It should be something casual and conversational where industry peers could speak frankly amongst each other. The client also wanted to incorporate a host.

Once we formally aligned on all campaign deliverables, we got it on paper with a standard Statement of Work (SOW), signed all our contracts and then it was time to get to work.

Pre-Production

Pre-Production is really where the magic happens. It’s the least sexy part of all of the production process but the most integral part of having a successful shoot and production in general. We had 3 and half weeks of pre-production before our one-day production shoot for this campaign. 

Since we were looking to create an episodic-style series, I knew it would be important to bring people onto my production crew with professional TV and film experience. I brought on my former colleague and dear friend Steven Roberts as our Supervising Producer and he worked to creatively develop our show format, script, and direction. Seeking to tell real peoples stories and combining it with brand goals and requests can sometimes get tricky and can dilute the purpose and impact of a project if not managed correctly, but that’s where Steven was crucial to our shoot. He helped us to find those intangible people stories and seamlessly tie in an important brand message as well.

As storytelling is such a significant part of making impactful content, we dedicated time to talent prep. We did pre-interviews with all the talent and had a special prep meeting with our host Taylor Rooks to go over the plan for the shoot day and discuss the talent she would be interviewing. It was crucial to be over-prepared as we only have 1 day of shooting to get it all right.

We also dealt with a last-minute location change (days before our shoot) and had to quickly pivot, location scout remotely, and hope the gear and lighting plan we had previously created would work in our new space. This is also why you hire good people because good people know how to adjust and can problem-solve alongside you.

After weeks of meetings, Zooms, and revisions, we were finally ready for our shoot day!

Production

We carved out a pre-light day for ourselves in our production schedule which is where you come into the space (typically a day before) your shoot and set up all of your lights, rigs, and cameras. This was time for myself, the DP, and the gaffer and test our ideas out and finalize visual details so when we arrived on set the following day to shoot, we were all set.

We had a full set for this production. MCS hired over 20 crew members, most of whom were Black and Brown. 

During pre-production, we created a Run of Show (ROS) to map out our shoot day, decide what time people arrive, what time and where we our content capture, and more. By creating this document, we knew exactly how our day was going to run, we just had to follow the schedule. We also buffer in time for mistakes, retakes, runs, and everything in between. Because in production, if it can go wrong, it might just happen, so always bake in time for unforeseen issues or changes.

Our shoot day ran smoothly and we successfully captured all of the content we needed for the day including video and photography needs.

Post-Production

We took post-production in-house for this project and hired our own post team. That meant hiring for:

• Editor

• Illustrator/Animator

• Sound Designer

• Colorist

Depending on the size of your project, your Post team could increase or decrease in size but for the quality we wanted and the number of deliverables we had, this 4-person squad was more than enough to get our final episodes completed on time and under budget.

I directed these episodes and stepped in as our Post Supervisor and managed all of our asset creation and final delivery to ensure a consistent creative throughline for the campaign. My sign-off is required on every asset before its shared with the client.

From the client side, the post process is less active and their primary responsibility is to give feedback and notes in a timely manner. Since we were so well aligned during our pre-production process it made the asset review process quick and painless because we delivered exactly what we all agreed upon initially.

Our creative vision was articulated and executed as we said it would be - and that makes for a successful project in our book.

Takeaways and Learnings

• End-to-end production are a beast. Hiring the right people for the right roles is important. Working with people that know more than you will help you grow and growth is critical to longevity in any industry.

• Our backend systems are working. We use the Notion platform for our backend production management tool and it was CLUTCH for keeping ourselves organized throughout this sprint.

• This project was a chance for MCS to stretch our production capabilities and storytelling strengths. Those are things that are invaluable to our business. It’s a privilege to work with clients like Foot Locker because they put so much trust in our team’s creative vision and execution that it makes our job easier and allows us to create more authentic content for their brand.