CARRY ON: The Making Of

As a company, we love where we do business. The Raleigh area is unique in that while having everything you could want from a city, it still keeps a small-town feel about itself.

That’s why we were excited, but not surprised when we first heard murmurs about the Triangle Takeoff Coalition. It seemed only appropriate that such a close-knit community would set out to encourage its citizens and businesses to ‘carry on’ and get our economy back to its regularly scheduled programming.

Campaign Deliverables

While the entire campaign included additional still photography assets, the main visual deliverables were a :60 cut, a :30 second cut directed toward business travel, a :30 second cut directed at leisure travel, and a :15 second social cut. The :60 is features at the beginning of this case study. The :30 second leisure video, business video, and the :15 second social cut are linked below.

The Message

That was precisely the heart and messaging of this campaign. It’s time to fly again.

Air travel is especially vital to the economic and social opportunities in our community. For years, Raleigh-Durham International Airport has been a hub for trade, travel, and transportation and it was certainly a blow to local infrastructure to see air travel come to the fastest halt since 9/11.

In many ways, RDU is a lifeline to the quality of life in our area. As such, the entire messaging goal was to highlight how the airport supports this quality of life and reassure people it is safe to return to travel.

What is the Triangle Takeoff Coalition?

The Coalition is a group of local business and community leaders throughout the Triangle area who understand the impact Raleigh-Durham International Airport has on both business and overall quality of life. The purpose and goal of the Coalition is to highlight the economic impact of the airport to the residents and businesses of the Triangle area in hopes it will inspire them to get back in the sky.

Who makes up the Triangle Takeoff Coalition?

The Coalition is comprised of a number of sponsors united around a common message. This includes business leaders from all sectors including development, technology, biotechnology, transportation, banking, law, communications, education, and agriculture. See the full list below.

Development: Balfour Beatty, Kane Realty, Stewart

Communications: Capitol Broadcasting, Eckel & Vaughan,

Banking: PNC

Education: Duke University

Agriculture: Syngenta

Law: Smith Anderson

Transportation: RDU Airport Authority, Regional Transportation Alliance

Technology: Cree | Wolfspeed, Lenovo, Cisco, Research Triangle Foundation

Biotechnology: FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, United Therapeutics, Novo Nordisk

These sponsors came together for the greater good of the Triangle in hopes that the Campaign as a whole give residents of the community the push they need to get back to business.

Pre-Production Planning

Now with the Coalition and the Message, it was time to create the content. Eckel & Vaughan – a Strategic Communications Agency led the way in coordinating many initial aspects of the project. They brought on David Salmon to write the initial script and head up messaging. With his long history in production, he also co-directed during the production process.

McGavock Edwards ( E&V Partner and Strategic Communications Director) and Halley White (Account Supervisor) coordinated initial requests for the involvement of a number of public figures.

Public Figures

Our goal was to have each public figure represent an area of business or leisure that was affected by the pandemic.

Since business and leisure are two major forms of travel, this works well to represent those same immediate effects on the airport.

The Sanchez Family – Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews

Terrance & Torry Holt – Holt Brothers, Inc.

Ira David Wood III – Theatre in the Park

Mike Landguth – Raleigh- Durham International Airport

Location

Our team worked closely with David Salmon to discuss location scouting, shot selection, overall messaging and the production plan.

To convey the message visually, we decided to show each public figure in either the airport, or a space that directly reflects their industry.

This was an exciting part of production, allowing us to get a behind-the-scenes look so many Triangle staples including the PNC Arena, Wake Med Soccer Park, The Durham Performing Arts Center, The Angus Barn, and of course RDU Airport.

With so many unique locations and the schedules of some very busy people, we worked hard to ensure we remained on schedule for the intended release date of the campaign, allocating enough time to accomplish the high level or work we always strive for.

This campaign allowed for another unique and rare location opportunity – filming on the runway itself.

An uncommon occurrence in the world of production and air traffic control we stuck to a very tight schedule as we were racing against the clock and the setting sun. The goal was to get the winning shot while the light was still good and with the shortest amount of time on the runway.

We went through a security checkpoint and were bussed over to the runway, supervised by the Head of Operations.

The likelihood of this happening was due not only to both our team and E&V having a pre-existing relationship with RDU, but even more than this, it shows RDU’s trust in the vision. They understood the visual impact the shot would have in telling their story and highlighting the message and their team came along side to make it happen.

Production

With a production plan in place, our crew went to work, initially capturing b-roll footage, then moving on to film the public figures featured in the project, all while continuing covid safety filming practices.

For the repeated motion of capturing each individual, our team was excited to try out our new CineShooter from Kessler along with their CineSlider. This allowed us to perfectly replicate smooth camera movements for each figure where they were clearly featured while showing the grandeur of each of their locations.

With the help of our Small HD Monitors, our Director(s) had a full, clear, real-time view of what the camera captured. We’ve enjoyed having these on set, especially when a client is present. Since these monitors are wireless, we set them up a good distance from the camera which allows the client a clear view of the shot without needing to be directly next to the camera.

Due to th equick timeline of the runway shoot, it was so helpful to be able to move in and out of the area quickly, setting up and tearing down the whole set in a very short amount of time.