The Story Behind the Story

Bailey Edrington
Apr 28, 2017
3 min read

Ok, to me this was the coolest project we've done in PR Pubs for more reason than one.

First off: I love stories. And yeah, that maybe the former theatre major/ aspiring actress in me; however, more than anything, that's the writer in me talking.

I was a little worried about sitting down to interview a total stranger. I'd seen Amanda in class but I didn't know her at all.

Mostly, I was worried that our conversation would be surface level, college girl conversation. I didn't make that assumption based upon anything Amanda did or could do, but I came to that conclusions solely based off the fact that I didn't have the most thought-provoking or earth-shattering questions on hand.

Needless to say, I wasn't expecting much.

We showed up for the day of interviews, we checked out a tripod and headed outside to film. After a good 30 to 45 minutes of messing with the technology, we had a video recorded with no audio... BUT we stumbled upon a story.

I had asked Amanda what her favorite memory from college was: she proceeded to tell me all about her summer in Zambia on a missions trip. I was floored! I just got back from a week in Haiti on missions. Mission work is very near and dear to my heart. I feel called to international missions and have hopes to go to Africa (Uganda, specifically) on a long-term mission trip at some point in my life.

When Amanda began telling her story, my heart leapt for joy! Who would have thought we would connect on such a deep level with such a surface level question? And what are the odds that she happens to talk about mission work and Africa? I mean, some may call it coincidence, but I think God had a total hand in it.

The hardest part about the interview was keeping my mouth shut! I wanted to pipe in and have a conversation about her experiences and learn how Zambia rocked her world as Haiti had mine. I wanted to turn the interview into a heartfelt conversation about missions and Africa and education and feeding the hungry. And though I wasn't able to do that during the interview, it opened the door for conversation after the interview.

Amanda asked what I would like to talk about in my interview and I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to talk about Haiti. It was quite the no brainer considering I had left a piece of my heart there about a month earlier.

I concluded my interview and she completed hers, and then we began editing. Because we were talking about missions, we didn't think the B-Roll would be filmed here; rather, we decided that photos and videos from our trips would be the best B-Roll for a project and a topic like this.

Amanda and I sent photos and videos back and forth and subsequently began to stitch the stories and memories together to create our videos. Nothing made me happier than listening to a children's choir sing and seeing radiantly joyful smiles on dirty faces and watching friendships form over handshakes and hugs...it was all too familiar and too precious: it took me back to Haiti.

All that to say, this went from class assignment to passion project rather quickly. This ended up being one of the coolest stories I have to tell and the best reason to sit behind a computer screen for 8 hours.

And as much as I love Amanda's story, I really cherish the story behind the story. How cool is it that two random classmates happen to be paired together and share a soulful connection such as this?