Project Spotlight: Operation: EPIC (MMM #29)
Greetings everyone,
Madeline here with the 29th entry in The Movie Minute. For this entry, we’ll be exploring one of our biggest jobs during the summer season!
Organized by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF), this annual event is known as Operation: EPIC (Educational Planning Information Conference). For five days, SOWF recipients who are currently in high school travel to Tampa, FL to prepare for post-secondary education and make new friends as well!
For this year’s EPIC, things were a little different. While previous iterations were held at the University of Tampa, this year saw the event shift to the University of South Florida. Nevertheless, many of the highlights of EPIC were here to stay. The main backbone was a series of lectures from a variety of presenters, the big focus being on what to do when preparing for higher education or next steps after high school (Peter van Buskirk, Best College Fit), in addition other helpful and essential topics such as mental health and wellness (Siomara Bridges-Mata, Success Beyond Metrics), personal finance and budgeting (Engozi Burrows, Total Freedom Solutions), and personal branding (Jimmy and Liddie Palumbo, PIVITU), as well as an engaging keynote speech and Q&A from Ret. Navy SEAL Jason Redman, and representatives from Power Design (trade advocacy), SOWF, and USF. In addition, mentors who are SOWF recipients themselves talk about their experiences with higher education with a panel and Q&A as well.
Of course, we have to highlight the fun parts of the event as well. These include a tour of the USF campus and visit to Splitsville for bowling, pool, and comfort food, as well as dinner with a dance party aboard the Yacht StarShip. With the students having plenty of energy, we had to be diligent when capturing exciting moments!
Finally, we rounded the last day up with an awards dinner to honor our students, supporters, and partners. However, the biggest job for us at Poor Bear Stories was getting testimonials and headshots from the students who attended this year’s EPIC. It involved setting up photography and interview stations in a short amount of time, to allow as much time interviewing students before the beginning of the awards dinner.
Covering an event like EPIC, of course, is full of other challenges as well. With five days worth of shooting photo and video, our team collects a lot of data that we have to consistently offload. One particular thing that Jake has been pushing me to improve my skills on is being more efficient with shooting. I tend to shoot more footage than I need to, out of fear of missing important and powerful moments. However, this can also put stress on those who are editing the project (whether it be Jacob or myself), so slowly but surely, I’m working toward more effectively planning any necessary shots before going into a production. In addition, sometimes EPIC attendees tend to be camera-shy, so we also have to plan accordingly with our shooting angles, times, etc. to make sure we can get the footage we need without disturbing anyone.
Despite the challenges (many of which are common to any of our shoots), performing video work for EPIC is essential to the work we do, and is our way of giving back to SOWF. Many of us have attended or mentored at past iterations of the event, and because of all the good work and support that the foundation has given us, we want to give back by producing content that spreads awareness about the event and how the foundation has provided engaging opportunities for children of fallen special operations personnel to learn important skills as they prepare for the professional world.
Overall, Operation EPIC is one of our most important events that we cover during the busy summer season. While it might be a busy and eventful week-long shoot, we enjoy the opportunity to capture engaging moments from the event, and to show our gratitude to a wonderful organization that makes our storytelling possible.
That’s all for this entry in The Movie Minute. Wishing you all the best, and stay tuned for the 30th entry in the series about C2CT! -Madeline
We at Poor Bear Stories are passionate about your story. Creating media that makes a difference is our craft and life’s work. With over 35 years of industry experience, we bring a host of solutions to your brand and media endeavors.
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