Case Study:

The Lily Initiative: Awareness

Category

Narrative

Launched

May 2025

Runtimes

5 min.

Seen On

🎞️ 💻

At a Glance

The Lily Initiative is a volunteer-led ministry program launched by Evangel Church, to support and recruit foster and adoptive families.

We produced a storytelling video for a premier that would be viewed by thousands of church attendees on a single Sunday.

  1. A video that pulls on the heart strings and compels the audience to get involved one level deeper with The Lily Initiative, fostering, and/or adoption.
  2. Avoiding painting certain people groups in a negative light
  3. To subtly represent some or all of the services that The Lily Initiative provides

The Process

Our first ideation for this project revealed several scenarios we would like to portray in our film.

However, we knew we would be limited by final runtime and other constraints. So, we hand-picked three main locations to tell the story: school bus, case worker office, and foster home.
We scouted locations and planned lighting for each scene.

After looking at a few real office options, we realized that building an office in our studio was going to be our best option for the flexibility we needed.
The script for this project was fairly limited in terms of spoken lines, but the screen direction (what people see) was quite in-depth.

Every prop and action had a purpose, and each camera angle was intentional. Even the music was picked beforehand to match the intended tone of each scene.

Our Approach

Conveying a unique and nuanced story benefited from cinematic creativity.

Our multi-day shoot involved more than one complex camera move.  The bus scene involved a programmed “dolly” motion where the camera traveled through the middle aisle passing between the seats.

Each composition favored the child’s perspective and often obscured the faces (and voices) of adults. This was a conscious choice to bring the viewer into the world of a child and eventually reveal that it was all a dream.

Transition moments were carefully planned to draw the viewer from scene to scene, carefully stitching the story together. Subtle camera effects and angles build on the overall experience of the short film.

Storyboards Coming to Life

Our concepts typically begin as short scripts and quickly develop into storyboards, flush with reference visuals and production details. Planning ahead and location scouting is extra important for a narrative video like this one.

The storyboard is used to keep everyone on the same page, from the client to the production team, to the actors. The images in this document should function as “thumbnails” for the final product.

Working With Young Actors

It is important to us that we take great care of our talent, especially young actors.

Weeks before the shoot, our director spent time getting to know our main character and his parents in the comfort of their home. During production, we invited his Dad (see the photo below) to be on set with us to help with any nerves or periods of waiting in between scenes.

We were able to schedule our production around school commitments as well as keeping shoot days short to ensure a positive experience for everyone.

Sunset, Precisely Timed

One core theme of this story revolved around the “waiting” period that so many foster children experience before eventually being placed in a home. We wanted to do more than just a jump-cut sequence to show the passage of time.

So, we dreamed up this idea of simulating a sunset outside the window of our dreary office set. Our technical crew custom-built a rotating motorized light rig that gave us a repeatable 4 minute sunset. We paired this lighting with a short timelapse sequence that made for a very convincing moment in the final video.

Story is in the Details

Some details are necessary to tell a story, but it’s the finer ones that create an immersive world.

We created various mood boards for wardrobe, art decoration and props to help set a detailed stage for each scene.

The clothing we chose for our foster boy showed his progression from neglect to eventual integration with his family.

Other details like a bouquet of lilies on the kitchen table were a nod to “The Lily Initiative” name. As the film goes on, these flowers are shown in successive stages of blooming to illustrate the child opening up to his foster family

The Final Product

Did you catch
them all?

Art department details that really make this spot special

  • The lilies bloom as our lead becomes more comfortable.
  • It was all a dream – the photo on the wall in the office is recreated in our final shot in the dream sequence.
  • Inspired by Norman Rockwell, hyper focus on children, the adults take a supporting role. – Should reword

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