For the second year, Vita Coco has asked me to create a series of videos highlighting black entrepreneurs. Getting to interview so many different types of people and learn about their backgrounds has been extremely fulfilling. I think it’s really important to showcase the hard work of people we often overlook. As a filmmaker, that’s why I love the work that I get to do. Every shoot is like a new adventure in story telling.
My strongest production skillset is interviewing and talking with people on camera. As a small team, we go into these productions with an outline of questions but once I get going, I end up capturing so much more interesting information than we intended. This year, the campaign took us to Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Fort Worth. Going into these cities and learning the impact they’ve had on their communities has been the most heart warming.
The creative and social media team at Vita Coco are so fun to work with. They do an excellent job at cultivating and planning all the shoots so that all I have to do is show up and do what I do best.
Below is a screen capture of the micro-site featuring everyone we interviewed. You can visit the actual site here. Below this screen cap, I’ve included all the videos. Photos on the micro site are also by yours truly.
Behind the scenes image of me directing/shooting/interviewing at Hotel Dryce
Behind the scenes image of me directing/shooting/interviewing at Fruvee
The videos were posted as Instagram stories. Four were posted during the month of February and one each month afterwards.