Stanwood-Camano School District

My Role

The Stanwood-Camano School District contacted me to create three social media videos as part of the Vote Yes! Campaign a local tax to help funding for the local schools. Spoiler alert: Yes! The campaign passed, and by a wide margin. This reverses the levy tax that was voted down last time and resulted in much tighter budgets and a loss of funding for students in terms of classes and security services.

Critical to the success of the videos as part of the Vote Yes! Campaign was the need for the video to not look polished in anyway—other similar campaigns we looked at that were voted down had a  very high end look. This caused people to question where funding was going, and whether funds were really going directly to what they were supposed to fund—and not an expensive ad agency, or anything else that smacked of misuse of funds.

Though originally shot simultaneously with an iPhone 14 Pro Max and a Sony A7iv, the decision was made to just go with the iPhone audio and video for it’s handheld lower quality look. The audio , by today’s cinematic standards is sub par, but appropriately low quality. The bulk of the video was shot at the local YMCA where kids were asked to participate ad hoc amidst a very echo-filled room. Additional footage was acquired by contacting local business owners who supported the measure.