Shela-He is a Lakewood based organization that gives women the chance to partner with yungeleit by donating a dollar a day

Client: Shela-He

Objective: Create a full video program for their annual event

Film locations: Lakewood, New Jersey

Project Deadline: February 2025

Preproduction

Shela-He is a Lakewood based organization that gives women the chance to partner with yungeleit by donating a dollar a day to a fund distributed immediately to kollel families. For the past three years they’ve held an annual event called “Connectify,” where women come to hear words of inspiration and affirm their commitment to this special cause.

We’ve made the videos for the past two years, and this year Rabbi Mechel Reidler, one of the organization’s cofounders, asked us to prepare a full video presentation for the evening’s program. He explained that in addition to a classic feature explaining what Shela-He is all about, they also wanted four prerecorded speeches, and to keep the program engaging and fluid, they wanted each speaker to end off referencing a song that the live band could then play immediately. Additionally, they wanted a music video that would really inspire and resonate with the attendees, for a grand total of six videos.

It was pretty clear that the bulk of our workload would be focused on the music video. The speeches would need to be scheduled and filmed properly, but we wouldn’t be showing any visuals over them; the speakers’ own charisma would carry those segments. The six-and-and-a-half-minute music video, on the other hand, would need visuals for that amount of time, and there was no clear direction of what these visuals would look like.