UPCI: The Power of Partnership

The Making of UPCI’s “Power of Partnership”.

By Patrick Sehn

Recently UPMC and UPCI (University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute) held a grand gala to celebrate the generosity of its donor communities. The evening celebration brought together a vast group of diverse individuals who donate their time, money and resources to a very worthwhile cause, finding a cure for cancer. On Motion Media was brought on board to produce four “pillar” videos for the event.

The theme of the gala was “The Power of Partnership,” and UPMC/UPCI was celebrating the authentic partnerships that exist between UPCI and the community, between patients and physicians, and between the physicians and researchers. These are the partnerships that make it possible for UPCI and UPMC to do their real work, to help make cancer a chronic illness and not a life threatening disease, working ultimately to find a cure. This power of partnership played a major role in the production of four “pillar” videos – from concept through delivery.

When you are awarded the opportunity to work on a project like this it makes your job all that much more rewarding. Not only was the project meaningful in that the videos we produced would help inspire people to give, but it was also meaningful for us at On because we were forming a partnership with some amazing people at UPMC. And even though the videos were just a small part of the evening’s event, everyone at UPMC/UPCI treated us with the most professional respect, acknowledging our contribution at every stage of the process. We felt like real partners, not just partners in theory.

We believe that video is always the medium to choose when you want to evoke emotion and in turn move people to act. Our concept revolved around having each participant speak directly to the camera and tell his or her individual story. These stories would then be woven to tell the big picture story, so first we needed the source content. We had an initial meeting with our clients at UPMC and they conveyed the messages they wanted to be delivered. We were then given a list of the individuals to be interviewed, and what their connection was with the UPMC/UPCI story. Our executive producer, Bill Medica, created interview questions to evoke both information and emotion from the interviewees. Our goal was to ask each participant questions, but to have them respond directly into the camera, thus speak directly to the viewer. This created an emotional, almost one-on-one connection between the person speaking and the viewer.

With a little coaching from our director Tom Schneider, and using a two-way teleprompter setup so that each interviewee could actually see Bill as he interviewed them thus not talking into the cold lens of a camera, these non-professional talents delivered the most amazing and emotional performances. With the help of our clients, we were able to secure some truly outstanding people. We interviewed cancer survivors, physicians, and community leaders; each had their own story to tell, each delivered sincere messages that conveyed their enthusiasm and gratitude. With everyone’s dedication and input we were able to stage one of the most successful shoots in the history of On Motion Media. Check out our Flickr page for some behind the scenes images.

UPMC then gave us free-reign. Bill and I went through the interview footage, eight hours of it, to find the best bites to tell four complete stories that would convey both information and emotion. An additional challenge was that each story needed to be told in under three and a half minutes. It was a tall order, mostly because there were just so many amazing sound bites.

The next significant undertaking was the music. Music underscores the emotion of the piece, and really moves the piece along. We knew from the onset of the project that library music wouldn’t do and we knew which composer we would bring on to do the job. We called on Sonji Woodruff to compose original music to give the project the emotional impact it deserved. As always, she delivered. It was her brilliant work on four unique tracks that helped give each video the emotional feel we were looking for. She has done amazing work for us in the past and it was our pleasure to continue our partnership with her on this project.

Once the stories were cut together and the music was in place, we were able to follow through with our goal of keeping the art direction and design simple. The design team for the gala supplied us with a beautiful logo, details of which were used throughout each video. The logo is simple and elegant, exactly what the art direction called for.

Once all of the elements were in place: the sound bites, the music and the art direction, it became apparent to us that through all the hard work and dedication of so many people and the partnerships formed, we were able to deliver a beautiful, elegant and moving product.

We were truly humbled to be a part of the celebration gala and happy to help the folks at UPMC and UPCI celebrate the philanthropy of their donors and their tireless resolve in battling cancer.

Please take a moment and watch one of the videos. Also, please take a few minutes out of your day to visit UPCI’s website and consider donating.