Project Overview:

Rural LISC invests in places most folks never see up close. Small towns and parishes where one program can change a block, a school, or a family’s path. For more than five years, Daniel Pan has traveled with the Rural LISC team to communities like Clarksdale, Mississippi, Sisseton, South Dakota, Twin Falls, Idaho, and St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The goal was simple: listen first, then film.

We built a documentary approach that centers real voices in real places. Residents, organizers, small business owners, and tribal leaders speak in their own words. The films pair quiet interviews with lived-in moments: a storefront reopening, a class in session, a house repaired after a storm, a clinic welcoming its first patients. The tone is grounded and respectful so viewers can understand the scale of rural revitalization without the hype.

Objectives:

• Show the human impact of Rural LISC across housing, education, small business, and community health
• Earn trust with partners through respectful, accurate storytelling
• Create a repeatable documentary format for fundraising, policy education, and national awareness
• Build a growing library that reflects the diversity and specificity of rural communities

Scope of Work:

• Editorial development with interview frameworks, consent and ethics guidelines, and story briefs
• Production planning for locations, community liaisons, travel, and a small-footprint crew
• On-location production with interviews, vérité coverage, ambient sound, and selective archival use
• Post-production with narrative edit, captions, color, and mix delivered in long and short cuts for web, events, and social

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Campaign Execution & Marketing Rollout:

• Capabilities used: Full-Service Video Production
  • Mini-documentary series with three to six minute anchor films per community and 30 to 60 second social cutdowns
  • Event and fundraising versions tailored for briefings, grant reviews, and donor meetings
  • Photography pulls for reports, decks, and media kits
  • Organized asset library by theme such as housing, education, entrepreneurship, and disaster recovery

Expected Outcomes:

The work presents rural progress as both urgent and hopeful. Funders and policymakers now have a clear, consistent film format that shows real outcomes, and local partners feel accurately represented in how their stories are told.

The growing library has raised confidence in fundraising conversations, improved program visibility in national briefings, and supplied ready-to-share assets for partner organizations and local media. Each project continues to reach beyond the filming window and helps make the case for sustained investment in rural communities.