Outtakes from a video production studio

Client: Yeshiva Nishmas Hatorah (Inwood, New York)

Objective: Create a music video for their annual campaign

Film locations: Jackson, New Jersey, and Inwood, New York

Project Deadline: March 2025

The Proposal

When we created a music video for Nishmas Hatorah’s building campaign last year, we collaborated with comedic songwriter and performer Binyomin Miller to produce something the bochurim, who get involved in the annual fundraising campaign, would be excited to share. Binyomin wrote a song called “Incomplet” (yes, the missing “e” is intentional), with whimsical lyrics describing incomplete items — half a slice of pizza, gilah and rinah without any ditzah — as a metaphor for the half-finished building the yeshivah was trying to complete. The campaign was a tremendous success, and both the yeshivah and their marketing team, ConsultWrite, knew they wanted to bring Binyomin back this year. The challenge would be building on the success of “Incomplet” without falling prey to stale-sequel syndrome.

Preproduction

Binyomin’s brainstorm was to do a song called “Complete” — not in the glaringly obvious direction of lauding the completed building, rather a more figurative approach focusing on the complete experience the yeshivah gives their talmidim. We thought it had great potential, as did ConsultWrite and Rabbi Pinchus Weinberger, rosh yeshivah of Nishmas Hatorah. Aside from the fresh angle, it would also allow us to showcase how the yeshivah gives the talmidim tools for life.

Binyomin got to work writing the lyrics, and he came to us mid-February with a draft. In order to differentiate it completely from last year’s video, he started the song with a two-paragraph backstory about… a color specialist who devoted years of his life developing a specific shade of paint.