I wanted to share a few thoughts with you on the video production process and my own personal reflections on the video, A Capital Greening, that I made for my Marketing Research class on the Green movement. I didn’t make this video alone, but I convinced three of my other classmates and friends, Margaux Harrold, Marina Lvova (@lvovy), and Frank Martinez, to do the project with me. It was a long and hard project, but a rewarding one in which I got to work with three other amazingly smart and talented individuals to make something that I’m really proud of. They are all people who make my ideas better and make ideas happen and I can’t thank them enough for that.

Marina has an amazing gift of words and a critical eye that kept us focused, on task, articulate, polished and professional. She’s someone who always smiling and makes those around her smarter and their ideas stronger. Check out her blog here. It’s awesome and one of my favorites reads.

If you can be turned on (a camera, computer, guitar or whatever), Frank can master it. He is a true AV pro. His cool head and quick ability to learn kept me sane in the editing room and the creative ways he finds to use anything electronic to express ideas boggles my mind at times.

Margaux is a true jack of all trades and I truly believe that there is no task this girl could not do or an idea that she could not make better. Her straightforward approach to her work, as well as her life, is refreshing and allows others to feel supported and therefore take on tasks they would otherwise felt to be impossible. She is one of the most productive and extremely dynamic people I know.

Now back to the video. Our task was to do a video ethnography exploring people’s attitudes on sustainability. The people we interviewed did not need to be “green” at all to participate – we just wanted to have a conversation to gauge how people think about “green”. We needed to interview people of all different viewpoints.  We planned  to understand the attitudes and behaviors of the different segments to better market green products.

Specifically, the purpose of the proposed research project was to present the views of consumers in each of the following pre-defined segments regarding their attitudes towards the green movement:

We started out in early November, with Frank and I sprinting to catch the GUTS bus while carrying black suitcases of rented camera equipment to our first interview at an office in McPherson Square.  Little did we know that those suitcases would become permanent fixtures in our hands (especially. Frank – our official camera man) and we would become pros at setting up a camera, tripod, and lapel mic in under five minutes.

In the course of approximately three weeks, we completed 21 interviews with people from all over DC.  I love asking questions and love talking to people, so I normally did the interviews but we all took out turn. We investigated many different consumer attitudes towards the Green Movement, the highlights of which are in “A Capital Greening.”  Some of our most interesting insights include the need for government involvement for the movement to have a true impact and how cost-conscious respondents from every segment proved to be.  Indeed, in the end, we felt a bit limited by the predefined segments, and noted significant commonalities amongst segments.

We also recognize the limitations this project has due to the nature of our sampling process and the time and cost restriction.  Our respondents were well-educated, almost exclusively at least at the college level.  They were also fairly well-off for the most part, and several knew each other or associated with each other prior to meeting us.

Still, we learned a great deal from this project.  We all spent many hours in Editing Room 7 at Gelardin, and were able to become well-acquainted with Final Cut Pro, Garage Band, Motion, Photoshop and iDVD, under my careful guidance.  We wrote scripts, searched for audio tracks, took extra footage, and talked to a lot of people.

I can wholeheartedly say that we have gained an immense amount of valuable experience from this entire process.

I hope you enjoy the film

Kind Regards,

Laura Sortwell (the producer)