Dix Park Conservancy Uses B-roll Capture to Document and Strengthen Their Initiatives

Video Objectives

  • Capture a variety of video footage at signature events for use in multiple promotional campaigns and initiatives throughout the year

  • Document the evolution of the park and the Conservancy’s efforts to engage the Raleigh community

If you're a resident of Raleigh, chances are you've enjoyed an afternoon in one of its newest and most expansive public spaces: Dorothea Dix Park.

As Manager of Community Engagement for the Dix Park Conservancy, Trey Roberts has an exciting and challenging job. He not only needs to oversee and organize the park's many events and initiatives, but he also needs to promote them to a wide audience and document them as a part of the unfolding story of a storied place in the heart of the metro area.

So when he reached out to The Grid to help him capture the events, visitors, and growth of the park, our heads swam with ideas for great video footage.

While Trey will call on us to complete projects with a specific video outcome in mind like an event recap or patron testimonial video, often we have the opportunity to act primarily as documentarians–as we did with the 2022 Juneteenth and Fourth of July events. 

We immersed ourselves in the crowd and captured hours of unscripted, fly-on-the-wall footage of speakers, performers, and participants. We launched our drones to get remarkable cinematic views of the entire park and its festivities–including the spectacular fireworks displays.

As a result of these successful shoot days, Trey has a whole catalog of varied, professionally-filmed b-roll video footage he can use to continue promoting and growing these events and to use as a record of the ongoing story of Dix Park. 

And as a result of our partnership, the Conservancy can easily and consistently extend its communications and community engagement capabilities to include the essential medium of video. 


Project Highlights

Video Format: B-roll Capture, Event

Production Features: Unscripted shoot, On-location shoot, Drone footage

  • We used a small 2-person crew to keep the budget reasonable: one operator captured the crowd and event programming and the other operator captured scene setting drone shots, which we worked closely with the park and City of Raleigh to plan and ensure successful drone flights at a safe distance from the crowd and fireworks.

  • We filmed the crowd b-roll in 60fps so that the footage can be played back in slow-mo or normal speed and be ultra-flexible for a range of applications across the Conservancy’s communications campaigns and internal purposes.  

  • In order to get the best footage, we meet and talk to a lot of the people at these events. Instead of just filming people at a distance, we try to let the “actors” know we’re filming for the park. Because we’ve found that talking to people always get's us better shots - and the types of shots our client wants to see.


Would a catalog of versatile, professionally filmed b-roll footage help you strengthen your organization’s initiatives? Contact us, we’ll help you craft video that delivers real results. 

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