I was flying to a research trip in Egypt when Covid-19 began spreading outside of China. By the time I stepped on a plane to return to Oregon a week later, Italy and Spain were in deep crisis mode. International airports were dead, and there was talk of the virus hitting the US.
In those first few weeks of the pandemic, we all had no idea what was upon us.
Initially, chaos, worry, and fear, spread across every conversation, text message, and social media post. All productions were cancelled. Friends locked themselves inside.
So many questions. Few answers.
But amidst it all, I watched as people in Portland began delivering groceries to the older population, how restaurants gave out food for the kids who now had to study at home, and how grandparents read evening books to their children over Zoom.
THIS was a story that we needed to hear, that we needed to do something about it.
So we put out a message to our global network of filmmakers. Does anyone want to make a film together? We’re hosting a webinar. Come learn more.
Over 600 people joined the webinar to learn more. Over the next week, more than 250 filmmakers, producers, writers, and researchers followed through to make the film.
To create a unified vision and organize the shot list, we created a set of 5 Keywords that represented the themes, messages, audience, and overall purpose of the film. We divided everyone into teams based on regions, ensured we were all aligned, then got to work.
Over the course of just ten days, we organized a global team of filmmakers through webinars and Slack to develop the creative, bring together footage, and edit the four-minute video while filming up until the last minute on several continents around the world.
Each filmmaker brought in their own unique perspective of the pandemic in the film creation – from an expectant mother who is 33 weeks pregnant to a therapist and filmmaker who is struggling with the anger that the uncertainty has caused him.
The film was one of the first “Hope Stories” that was created during the pandemic. It was incredible to watch it spread across the internet and to receive messages for weeks after that this film brought a smile, a laugh, a little HOPE to somone who needed it.
The result I didn’t anticipate was how much the project impacted the filmmakers involved. When the worst happened, when we were all wondering how long is this going to last, how am I going to pay my next bill… we offered an invitation for filmmakers to come together and to make a choice. To choose action. To choose hope. To choose love. To choose to do something.