We take you through a few of our more memorable Mir productions

The annual Mir Yerushalayim campaign is one of the largest jobs on our calendar, both in terms of the amount of content we create and the numbers of viewers we have (at the live event as well as the online promos). Interestingly, the Mir is also one of our oldest clients; we’ve been working with them since the very beginning, when the entire staff consisted of... me.

In early 2014, I decided to rent a small office in downtown Lakewood, New Jersey, reasoning that working from home would never allow me to seriously grow my new business. I couldn’t afford much, just one small room in an older building, and I davened that enough projects would come in to justify the expense.

After schlepping my boxes up the rickety staircase, my first order of “business” was to scout out the neighborhood for an afternoon Minchah. When I heard there wasn’t any, I offered to host a daily minyan in my office. It was a pretty cramped space, and we barely squeezed in the small group of men from the building every day.

One of the regular attendees was Chanoch Zundel Herskowitz, director of Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim’s US Office, which was down the hall from me. After 18 months of daily pre-Minchah small talk, we had gotten to know each other a little, and in August, 2015, Chanoch asked if I could create four videos for the Mir’s upcoming Lakewood dinner. He introduced me to Boruch Wenger of Artech Marketing, who plays a central role in many of the Mir’s projects, and together the three of us worked out a production plan.

Although Chanoch doesn’t have a background in video production, his sense of messaging is incredibly honed, and he would hold me accountable for every line in every video.

“What does so-and-so add by saying the honoree does a lot of chesed?” he would ask. “The person before him already spoke about specific initiatives he’s undertaken — we don’t need the more general and clichéd statement.”

Knowing that Chanoch would review each draft with such an eye for detail forced me to put out not just engaging videos, but pieces with sharp, tight, and crystal-clear messaging.

We’ve worked together every year since then — the Mir’s dinner this Sunday is our 11th dinner collaboration.

Here, we take you through a few of our more memorable Mir productions.