Tourism and hospitality had been decimated by the pandemic, and Tourism HR Canada’s Propel Student Work Placement Program was poised to help the industry start down the road toward recovery. They came to us in late 2021 to create some videos to promote the program.

There was one part of the project that presented us with an interesting challenge. Some students had already been through the Propel program, and Tourism HR Canada wanted to conduct in-person interviews with them to create a series of success story videos.

In a time of uncertainty, with travel restrictions still in place and no indication of when the situation may improve, how do we conduct video interviews with people all across Canada?

We proposed that we put together filming kits – a GoPro video camera, microphone, light, and tripod – and ship them to each interviewee via FedEx. We would then provide direction to the interviewee on how to set up for filming, ensuring proper framing, lighting, and sound. Tourism HR Canada would provide a list of questions, and they would then record their own footage and upload it to us for editing.

The team at Tourism HR Canada loved our solution, and it was this creative idea in particular that caught their attention, and ultimately won us the contract. We started with a series of four interviews of former students. We created separate videos for each, as well as the following compilation:

At the same time, the other part of the promotional push was the creation of an explainer video. Through Zoom interviews with the Tourism HR Canada team and consulting their existing materials, we were responsible with creating a shorter teaser video and longer promotional video from start to finish:

• Script writing, client reviews and approvals
• Storyboarding visuals, incorporating footage provided by Destination Canada and filling in the gaps with stock footage and on-screen illustrations and text
• Recording and editing voiceover tracks
• Full video production of English and French versions, incorporating voiceover and music

The resulting promotional video is below:

The final piece of the puzzle was updating the PDF instructions for their Employer Portal and creating 10+ minute video walkthroughs. We recorded screen capture footage of the portal and synced it with voiceover in English and French.

The Tourism HR Canada team was thrilled with the results. Since then, they have kept us busy with a second round of success story videos – this time interviewing employers – as well as branding support, in-person video interviews, fact sheets, reports, illustrations, infographics, and more.