How should you react when the scope of your video project changes halfway through?

Many steps were ascended to reach this level…

Over a year ago, one nice Saturday morning, the Long Story Short team got up, brushed our teeth, collected our gear, and left for the Royal Albert Hall to film a promo for All Souls Music on the occasion of the 50th year of their annual Prom Praise concert. However, a year later, we finally released the video timed to coincide with this year’s concert - so how come?

Step 1: Improvise (somewhat)

We’d been brought on board at a fairly late stage, and our friends at All Souls were understandably busy, with their heads down and focused on the logistics of the night. We were completely welcomed into the team, and given everything we needed, but our brief was fairly broad. We were there to capture the magic that goes on behind the curtains of such a huge event, including interviewing one of their volunteers, Dee. We had a nice evening, captured what we needed, and said our goodbyes. A month later, we were able to interview Michael Andrews, the conductor on the night and Director of the organisation. Our filming was done, and we were happy with how we’d utilised our instincts to capture the essence of the brief.

Step 2: Adapt (where possible!)

Over the course of the next few months, the video was placed on the backburner, as the team at All Souls needed to focus their attentions elsewhere. Until, a couple months ago, we were asked to revisit the project and retool it slightly to meet their needs now. The concert was coming back, this time retitled the Coronation Prom as it coincided with King Charles III’s big day, and All Souls wanted to use the video to attract volunteers to help out on the big night. A lot happens to make a concert of this scale a success, and since so much of the money raised helps support the charitable work they do year-round, it’s vital to have volunteers on board making sure everything goes smoothly!

After taking another look at the footage, we retooled the edit we had so far and put forward more of the content we had about the volunteer process, as opposed to the footage that focused more on the history of the event 50 years on, which was no longer relevant. Michael’s interview formed the backbone of the piece, but it was all the more important that we had a little in there from Dee speaking about the volunteer experience.

Step 3: Overcome (with style)

A couple weeks in advance of the concert, we delivered our final edit, later accompanied by 12 different cutdowns for social media, formatted at different lengths and sizes for multiple potential use cases. The client was really happy with the assets we delivered, and were grateful that we were able to stick with it a year on. The concert was a huge success - the venue was sold out and the livestream on YouTube was also a hit. And most importantly, All Souls were able to attract the talented volunteers they needed to ensure that it was.

“We were delighted to work with Long Story Short on our volunteer video and are really pleased with the final product. In multiple formats, the team made sure we had content we could really use - not just another video for the archive. Jamie was patient and willing to keep the conversation going until we were completely satisfied and we're very thankful!”