We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jordan Larson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jordan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Over the past 8 years in video production, I’ve had the honor of working with great organizations to capture their stories on video. However, none have been quite as rewarding as Take7’s collaborations with Every Day Hope; filming in remote villages in the Dominican Republic.
It seems the most challenging projects, are often the most rewarding. From TSA holding our gear hostage to battling food poisoning in the jungle (while filming), this project was no exception.
When you think of the Caribbean, many envision white sandy beaches, palm trees, and all-inclusive resorts. The DR has those amenities in areas of tourism, but definitely nowhere near the communities that our production crew had the opportunity to visit.
The disparity between the affluent and the poor is staggering, and Dominicans that live outside large cities have little to no electricity, and walk kilometers to collect water from highly contaminated rivers.
For context: Every Day Hope works in developing countries to raise the standard of living through building sustainable clean water systems. When they approached our team at Take7 Productions to tell the stories of their efforts and the wonderful people they serve, we jumped at the opportunity.
From the start, we knew our greatest challenge would be brevity. Churchill said it best, “If I had the time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” With a multitude of incredible initiatives and stories to choose from, we had to narrow in on what would make an impact in the shortest amount of time, and we had a shoestring budget.
Through multiple strategy calls with Every Day Hope, and several pre-production meetings with our creative team, we put together a production plan to capture 4 vignettes in 4 days of production, with travel in between.
With a budget that could only cover travel for 3 people, we set out with a skeleton crew, 2 cameras, 1 oversized drone, and a few pelican travel cases. Upon landing in the DR, we went through immigration and baggage claim, but got stopped at the final security point – just a few steps away from the last set of doors to the parking lot.
The drone case was quickly confiscated and taken to a separate side table where multiple agents gathered. They wanted to know what we were doing in the country, who we were filming with, and what other gear we had on us. Despite my attempts to explain the philanthropic nature of our visit, security wanted more gear. In the end, they collected all lenses, cameras, and even asked for the computers in our back packs.
What seemed like a precaution turned into a huge problem. They wouldn’t let us go with our gear unless we gave them a check for 50% of its value. We called our Every Day Hope contacts and they began working with their network to find someone in government to help intervene. It was a 7 hour standoff in the airport. Thankfully, we walked out of the front doors of the airport with all of our gear without paying!
The rest of the trip was a whirlwind of travel, meeting remarkable locals, and capturing stories that changed how we looked at life. It wasn’t an easy process, I even caught food poisoning and threw up in front of far too many observers mid jungle trek. But the best stories aren’t free.
By the end, we were able to craft vignettes that the non-profit used to raise enough money for multiple well projects. The videos and stories captured will last for years to come and continue to raise awareness of the problem and drive funds for the solution.
She Walks for Water is one of our favorite pieces from that trip, and the family we filmed with may be the highlight of the whole project. I’ve included a link here for those interested in viewing it. https://take7productions.com/water-every-day-hope/
With marketing, we often measure success in engagement metrics and I’m happy to say that the videos did very well to raise funds, but this video had a different kind of reward. We were able to pay a talent fee to the family you see in “She Walks for Water,” for allowing us to film part of their day. The gratitude and tears that followed shook each one of us on set. The family had been struggling to eat that week, and the pay was enough to solve that problem for the month. It was overwhelming to realize how much some have to fight for the basics in life that we so often take for granted in the States. The experience of being able to tell even a very small portion of their story and join the fight for a better quality of life for them and their community was the most rewarding element of the entire project. It was a reward that went beyond numbers or words.
That feeling of fighting for others is something that hasn’t left me or the other filmmakers on the trip. It has been a mindset that we’ve taken with us, and will continue to pursue in future projects. I’m endlessly grateful to Every Day Hope for inviting us to be part of their wonderful mission, and to every incredible person that shared their stories with us.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’ve always loved telling stories, and when my friends and I first got our hands on a VHS camcorder we couldn’t stop filming. We crafted sketch comedies, infomercial parodies, mockumentaries, and really untalented skate videos. It was an outlet for creativity and I was locked in.
Growing up I never had to ask myself what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to work with visual storytelling. As luck would have it, I met an incredible community of visual artists and filmmakers when I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for college. I plugged into that network, and found many like-minded talented people, and I co-founded Take7 Productions in my senior year of college in a pursuit to craft compelling stories full time.
Take7 Productions is a full service video production company driven to craft purposeful content. We work directly with brands and businesses to facilitate creative, production, and post. We collaborate with agencies to support their video production services; providing video directors and creatives that fill in the gaps and create successful campaigns.
I am extremely grateful for an incredible team of directors and artists who are never pleased with good enough. Our team is constantly exploring ways to innovate and elevate our medium. We madly pursue work that elicits the “wow” moment. Content that gives you goosebumps.
That means: breaking the mold, offering diverse perspectives, having a flair for style, and striving to connect. At the core, we love what we do and we want your audience to love what you do.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
I’m blessed to be able to work with so many amazingly talented humans and the size of each team varies greatly by the scope of the project. We’ll work with crews of 4 people to crews of 40 people. With that many moving parts, how you structure your team is everything. You need everyone to not only be clear about their assignment, but also passionate about it.
The biggest takeaway from working on a project of any size, is building a happy team. If your team isn’t happy with the task at hand, the end product will suffer – as will you and everyone else who works on that project.
When you first start pursuing creative work full-time, you want to take on every project that comes your way. It’s hard to say no to projects that don’t seem like the right fit because you are so eager to prove yourself and your product. However, we quickly learned in our first couple years at Take7 that you can’t fake great content. There isn’t any way to cheat inspiration. Your team has to care about what they are doing, otherwise your audience will see through it.
In that same vein, young entrepreneurs are encouraged to “fake it, til you make it.” While I celebrate anyone’s drive to hustle and grow, I can’t caution people enough to be realistic about their skillset. Yes, I want to always keep learning, but I don’t want to learn in an environment in which you are required to prosper. Don’t try and figure everything out along the way. And don’t put yourself or any of your team members in a position where they have to figure it out on the fly…i.e. stay in your lane!
The best projects are when you have everyone working in a department where they flourish. Onboard talent that excels in their field – don’t force relationships or assignments because you want them to work. Find where things fit naturally and things will take care of themselves. If you can get everyone on the same page with your mission, and you can place everyone in the positions where they naturally belong, that’s when you make something special. Be you and help others be themselves. That’s the secret sauce.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
It has been our mission at Take7 Productions to bridge the gap that often exists between corporate and creatives. The decision makers in corporate projects are, by design, pragmatic about their objectives. Their roles often require them to be. With creative projects, there needs to be room for exploration, trust, and risk taking – this can be a difficult ask at times.
Artists/Creatives are much more inspired by emotional drive to solve the problem – they are enticed by the journey more than the destination. It isn’t enough to say, “we need this.” Creatives need the “why” and to see the vision of what could be. Without that spark, they’ll just be going through the motions. Every year I am more convinced that the only way to create genuine and exceptional content is through a passionate pursuit of something.
The key to successful projects is by finding common ground between the two. You need the creator and the recipient to be equally excited about the work being done. Without the harmony of both, there is dissonance in the project. At Take7 we strive to unite every team that works together to create cohesive campaigns. We accomplish this by having a network of artists and aligning them with the right projects, and then onboarding them so they can understand the importance of the campaign and be an additional member of the team rather than just an “outside hire” or freelancer.
When everyone is on the same team, fighting for the same mission, that is when magic happens. You can’t get there without it.
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