Help Get Lit, a non-profit organization utilize its platform of helping young poets to further their message for global awareness surrounding social injustices beyond a single event for local audiences.
Fast Machine's efforts centered around several keywords; awareness, collaboration and authenticity. We set to create a video that served as a call to action to globally impact and connect viewers with the message on a personal level. We envisioned several poets, each with multicultural backgrounds and unique points of views, coming together to deliver a unified message through spoken word. The message would be clear – to the point and directed at the viewers.
Since limitation breeds creativity, we collaborated with some of our closest strategic partners. Starting with Lord Danger, a production company specializing in bold creative and boots on the ground producing to support the need for strong narrative and emotional connection. Under the circumstances of a fast approaching deadline, we provided detailed strategy, structure, and visuals to match the project's vision/tone. From there, Aaron Grasso and Mike Harris were called upon to Co-Direct. Next up was enlisting Jazmine Williams, a Get Lit alumni to write an original poem echoing our creative brief. As Jazmine focused on the poem, we set to cast the additional poets from within the Get Lit organization for our on camera performance. For the location, we chose Into Action, an art and activism event located in Downtown LA who shares Get Lit's core values. This provided depth to each poets individuality, voice, and became the common thread necessary to complete the projects centralized theme. Into Action, provided us the powerful backdrop which added to the authentic feel we were after. Clear creative direction and advanced production organization allowed us to shoot the project in a single night. Once the shoot was completed, we were in the edit with Zach Winick at Cosmo Street Editorial to tell the story and fine-tune the narrative. We stepped into color with Steve Rodriguez at Apache Digital to create that intimate and cinematic look, complementing the motion graphics that Jason Cook and the team at Flavor created. To tie everything together, we collaborated with Mike Franklin and the team at Barking Owl to create original 'news reel' voice over, sound design and mix.
The "Speak" video is one of Get Lit's most viewed pieces of video content to date. It generated thousands of impressions organically without any paid media. It helped drive awareness and drove ticket sales for their "Classic Slam" event which sold out. "Speak" became a vehicle for audiences to learn more about the non-profit organization as well as increased overall awareness as well as to additional program offerings focusing on advocating for social justice, education, and empowering youth. Furthermore, this video is now being used within the non-profit group as the anthemic video that is the fiber / DNA of messaging, quality of production value for all content moving forward.
