Introducing Breakthrough Urban Ministries

On October 28th Breakthrough Urban Ministries hosted their annual benefit dinner where they welcomed 1700+ guests to learn more about how they serve the people of East Garfield Park and how they can partner with them. For the benefit dinner, Breakthrough asked me to put together a feature that would explain the different aspects of Breakthrough and the many ways in which they serve their community.

To do this I used a variety of motion graphics and real video. I have long admired graphics that fit into video as if its a part of the landscape and so I wanted to approach this project in that way. As I went through the script and did the storyboarding, I knew which shots would involve text and framed them so I would have a spot the text could sit. However as I brought them into After Effects and began working on them, I realized some shots work for this kind of thing, and some don’t. I found that what helps the most to make text look “natural” is two things: either have camera movement and the text staying in place relative to the camera, or have parts of the text be blocked out by people or objects that are in between the text and the camera. Ultimately I’m quite happy with how this came out! A fun project to work on for sure and for an organization that my wife and I both believe in so much!

The voiceover narration was done by Mike Dawson, a really professional, classy voice artist, and really talented guy who added a lot to the project. Andrew Kooman compiled the statistics and data and wrote an excellent script conveying the heart of Breakthrough. It was a team effort, of which I was glad to be a part of!

I used After Effects for the motion graphics and assembled it all in Final Cut Pro. The video was shot with a Canon 5D Mark 2. Recorded the narration with an H4N.