There you have it! Loudoun County is now officially the home of the first Professional soccer team in Virginia. The USL sister-team to the highly-successful DC United FC, Loudoun United has been a heavily anticipated addition to the Loudoun community. For the first half of their inaugural season, the team played their games at Audi Field in Washington DC (DC United’s stadium), while their own home was being built in Loudoun. With all the buzz happening around this team in the area, and a strong desire to connect ourselves with everything Loudoun, we wanted to find SOME way to provide video production to this team to solidify the momentous occasion. Additionally, we wanted the opportunity to bring a rare, cinematic storytelling approach to an industry that is typically a much more documentary-style media arena. So we had a million ideas that hadn’t been seen in many professional leagues and teams yet that we wanted to bring to light. But how do you find yourself in front of such a busy, high-profile and fast-moving organization?
Well, for those of you who don’t own a business in Loudoun County, it’s hard to fully grasp how connected this community of businesses is. We share a parking lot with one of their official Brewery partners, Loudoun Brewing Company, we run our business out of Leesburg, 5 minutes from the new stadium, but the biggest blessing was teaming up with one of Loudoun’s most connected people on a recent shoot, Katie Barchas Wilson with The Market Group and The National Conference Center (which happens to be Loudoun United FC’s biggest sponsor). During a shoot for Brickyard coworking space, Katie was talking about her work with Loudoun United, and I overheard, and rudely forced my way into the conversation. She was gracious enough to put me in touch with the team’s COO, Adam Behnke, who I just had to meet.
Years of imagining working with a professional sports brand, we have an ENDLESS supply of high-energy video production ideas and techniques that we’ve been dying to use. All of that came to a point as I rattled off some ideas on how to properly welcome this team home to their new stadium, Segra Field. One of our super powers in video production meetings, is our ability to describe a video concept in great enough detail that our clients can visualize what we have in our heads to a point that it gives them goosebumps. Well, that happened. It was going to take a TON of work, multiple shooting days, all-access media passes to games, and a tight deadline to have it all ready by opening day.
Long story long: we did it, and it was not only a massive success for the organization, but one of the most inspired pieces we’ve ever created. We were so proud of the final product, that after watching it roughly 150 times in post production, we still get goosebumps. This thing is the epitome of what we love about our jobs. It’s the result of having complete freedom to create something we know will be amazing. I’ll stop talking now. Just watch. It’s cool as hell:
A HUGE thanks to everyone who helped in the creation and organization of this project! It’s amazing what a well-connected community can accomplish together! Thank you Loudoun United FC, the players, the front office, the fans, etc for allowing us to do this. Thanks to everyone who agreed to be in our video. Thanks to Katie Barchas Wilson for putting this all in motion, thanks to Linnie Hughes for her creative direction on some KEY scenes, and of course, the SkipperFilms team for coming together once again to make magic! We Are Loudoun!
