Case Study: USDHS/Nebraska Dept. of Agriculture

One of the complexities of working with government agencies is the need to understand and collaborate with multiple constituencies, and many times to balance competing interests, timelines and priorities. A production company successful in serving government clients understands this and works within it, not against it.

This complicated bio-terrorism preparedness project, with project management coordinated by the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, also had involvement by the US Department of Homeland Security, the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, her majesty's government in Great Britain, the US Department of Agriculture, other US state departments of agriculture and local private businesses. Understanding the needs and resources of these various organizations was a critical part of this project's success.

Planning Ahead Saves Time and Money

The last step in the creative development process for every project we do is called an "animatic" - an edited rough draft of your production using sketches. In this particular project, after the concept document and script had been approved by everyone, viewing the animatic revealed that one agency's priorities were not represented to their satisfaction. We were able to add a scene to the script and an extra few hours to principal photography. Had this not been caught until the rough cut, resolving it might have been cost-prohibitive.

Adapting to Changing Situations

One of our original concerns was that the project timeline specified in the RFP seemed to us to be too short. Sure enough, between when we executed the contract and were set to begin pre-production, one of the documents on which the script was to be based had its approval delayed until after we were contractually obligated to have the entire video completed. Our experience allowed us to provide a quick and studied solution to the problem that utilized the strengths of motion media. Rather than seek a contract extension, we worked with the delaying agency to approve just the major points. The video was then produced to communicate the major points completely, and pointed viewers to the final document for more detailed information. This solved not only the problem created by the delay, but also allowed us to stay away from including more details than the audience could have absorbed - a common mistake in motion media production, especially when the script must be approved by committee.

Public/Private Partnerships

Every project which we produce for a government client has at least one element of public/private collaboration: your relationship with us. But many projects also use the relationships of the agency within the private sector to provide resources to which the agency would not otherwise have access. For this project, the cooperation of several livestock businesses was needed. These businesses included a large cattle lot whose owners would allow a trench to be dug on their property and one of their herds to be driven into the trench for simulated euthanasia.