Connie Collins

This is one of three videos produced for Akron Community Foundation's Annual Report. Each video features people who have decided to use their personal resources to help other people. This couple determined to upgrade housing at Akron Rotary Camp for children with disabilities.

Passionate, unassuming and avant-garde, my client needed a visual piece that possessed the same character, and communicated it powerfully. We called it her "Moving Business Card". She hands it out just like a business card, and it is... moving!

Suncrest Gardens was brave enough to break the mold for 30 second commercials. They let me create this visual piece of poetry, intended to communicate a feeling, an experience, to entice the viewer to experience the place for themselves.

I had 30 seconds to explain a rewards program, get people to remember it and a government agency budget to do it with. This guy recycles, gets fame and green hands all in half a minute! The spot was honored with a 2009 Akron ADDY® Award for creative advertising excellence.

The Christian Community was the target audience for this. And it helped my client raise lots of money. I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia to film it. Young women and girls all over the world are subjects of the story, and they are in great peril if the rest of us don't do something about the sex trade. It is very gratifying and humbling to bring a story like this to light.

Can you feel the bureaucracy? Akron Summit Solid Waste Management Authority helps people recycle in a million ways. But I needed to keep it simple. This piece was designed to educate and motivate community leaders, so I chose a savvy 12-year-old girl as a spokesperson. She boiled recycling down to basics and put the adults to shame.

Emmanuel Christian Academy is a private school – pre-kindergarten through seventh grade – that turns ordinary kids into extraordinary students. To accurately showcase this amazing school, I couldn’t just create a typical capital campaign piece crammed with charts and button-pushing phrases. Rather, this motivational presentation utilizes minimal production elements for maximum emotional impact on viewers.

How do you get people excited about jury duty? Gather insight from people who have been jurors and talk with judges who think jurors are great! At a time of national pessimism, it feels good to ignite some pride in serving others.

My first short film, “A Trampoline,” looks at life from a kid’s point of view. It was screened at The Cleveland International Film Festival and The Istanbul International Children’s Film Festival.

I fell in love with the kids at Rotary Camp while shooting for ACF. This film was my donation to help the camp get campers and support. Sayvon got to be my tour guide on the day I shot AND, the star of this video.