One of the joys of the holiday season is the opportunity to say thank you and to wish you—our members, partners, and friends—a cheerful holiday and all the best in the coming year. Consider this video our gift to you. We had fun making it, as you can see from the bloopers at the end.
The E Source holiday card has become a much-anticipated event around our office. Employees wait with bated breath to find out what this year’s idea will be and wonder if, and how, it will top the previous year’s card.
With this in mind, the marketing team met in October armed with scribbled notepads full of ideas and an unstoppable level of determination. We hashed out multiple ideas, but finally landed on a winner. This year we decided to go bolder than ever before.
How it’s made: Behind the scenes of the E Source holiday card
Spoiler alert! If you haven’t watched the video yet, keep reading at your own risk.
For past holiday card videos we’ve lip-synced, but this year we decided to take our vocal cords where they’d never gone before—live! Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get sober adults to sing—for a publicly facing video, no less—but it can be a daunting task. At times, it reminded me of the classroom scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Anyone? Anyone?” However, with the right amount of coercion, a lot of holiday cheer, and a little bit of guilt, we got the whole company on board.
Once we secured the correct number of participants, we had to figure out the logistics of singing the song live and making it flow. We decided to have everyone wear headphones so they could hear the music without it drowning out their voices, and we provided a karaoke-style teleprompter in case anyone forgot the lyrics. The rest (costumes, style, dance moves) was up to our leading ladies and gentlemen. All of our E Source pop stars did a magnificent job getting into the holiday spirit, and their energy was truly contagious. As you can see in the video, people were really into it! Even our remote staff got in on the action.
Why we made it: To thank you!
The final step of this masterpiece required us to stitch the individual scenes into one cohesive video. The finished piece came out even better than I had imagined (I especially enjoy the blooper reel at the end!).
We made this holiday card just for you, to thank you for being a member and a friend. All of us at E Source sincerely hope you have a happy holiday season and a joyous New Year. Share your thoughts about the holiday card in the comments section below.
