Today’s topic is all about the “who”. This is an element of story-telling that may seem uncomfortable for some, but one that can be a very important factor in conveying messages: there will be times when who you use to speak can make or break the viability of a video piece.

As is often the case, these posts are motivated by something that I’ve recently dealt with in my work with Seacoast Church. We are currently in a series where we are studying the book of Acts; in the 7th chapter, we see the first instance of harsh persecution of the early church. As our Creative Team discussed how we might add value to the message via video, we came up with the idea to do a short piece about how there is still plenty of persecution of Christ-followers in the world today. After some research, we put together a script… and after a quick drive, a good location was determined. The final decision to make: who would be our subject in this slightly emotional, 2+ minute educational piece? The quick and relatively easy call was Megan, one of our team members who is half Korean.

Why? Because we felt that using anyone Caucasian in a piece about so many non-Americans might seem disingenuous. After the piece ran, we got so much great feedback that we felt that our choice was even more justified.

While this was a piece that contained heavy subject matter, I believe that choosing the right person should be considered in simpler things as well. If you’re doing a video promotion for an upcoming women’s event, never use a man to speak about it… or, who better than a well spoken teenager to talk about the upcoming youth lock-in? This is a small decision that can have a big impact on how your message is communicated and received.