Mennonite colleges in America were recently asked to make a video about faith and spiritual life at their college. The Goshen College admissions department contracted FiveCore Media to produce Goshen’s video. After several weeks of writing, shooting, and editing, the video is finished!

The video features Quinn Brenneke, a junior from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Emily Trapp, a senior from Canby, Oregon.  Because the video was limited to roughly two minutes, it was hard to dig deep into the content of their interviews. Quinn’s summer in Chicago was life-shaping and helped define what he wants to do for the rest of his life. He met a lot of, as he said, “really different people,” from Cadillac drivers to alley residents.  Quinn is always pumped to share about his experience coming from a suburban setting and spending time in urban Chicago.

Similarly, Emily’s story about her experience at the Post, an after school program for kids, is inspiring.  When we went to get footage of her at the Post, we could see how easily she meshed with her environment. She knew the kids and the kids knew her. But even more than that, it became obvious that she found her niche when she was interacting with kids.  This was proven to us in her interview, when she talked passionately about her experience. Let’s just say we had plenty of great content to pick from!

Producing this video wasn’t routine for everybody. In fact, this video was the first for two of the five FiveCore employees.  For Benjie and myself, it was a new experience, seeing the project almost from the start to the finishing post-production effects.  I’m learning more and more that I love this process. When I took my first video class, I was overwhelmed at the amount of work necessary to produce a video, nonetheless a good video. But as I’ve experienced more productions, I’m learning to love the process of producing high-quality videos.  It’s not an individual thing by any means, and that’s what’s so beautiful about it. What’s better than one mind trying to brainstorm, write, produce, and process a video by itself? Five minds. All wired so differently that we can contribute in ways that the rest of us wouldn’t think of.  Take a look at the Faith Stories video again, and keep in mind that each shot, each angle, each cut, each graphic, each movement, each setting, each word was a collaboration by a group of people passionate about the moving image.