“Safety is at the heart of what we do.”
National Express Corporation
National Express Corporation is a Warrenville-based transportation company that serves school districts throughout the United States and Canada. When they approached Sparkfactor with an opportunity to produce a follow-up to the successful Vision and Values piece we produced earlier in the year, we got on board.
Before the sun rises each day, and all those school buses pull out of their lots, the drivers of National Express need to be trained on driver safety. This includes a twice-daily process of checking the safety of each bus. The training video we produced takes drivers through each step in that process. We learned a few things along the way, too. We give you a closer look at the project goals and how we solved unique challenges to make the finished product informative and inspiring.
For this training video, we knew it was important to provide bus drivers a comprehensive overview of the pre- and post-trip procedures so they could then apply it on their daily routines. The video would give an in-depth look at the various parts of the safety checks to demonstrate how to correctly look for both minor and critical issues.
Once we had reviewed the script and created a preliminary shot list, Sparkfactor took a crew out on-location to NEC’s bus depot in Algonquin, IL. During an unseasonably cold day in September, we followed Joe, a pro at safety checks, as he went through the thorough procedures.
The video shoot was a long, cold process, but the opportunity to meet new people in special fields and work on-location always has the benefit of making for good experience and even better stories.
One challenging aspect of shooting was recording the monologue in the bus yard as the buses were leaving on their routes. Part of the pre-trip process, as you’ll see in the video, is to test and toot the bus’ horn several times before driving. But, thanks to our on-the-spot creativity, we were able to successfully work around the external audio and record the excellent introduction and conclusion to the video.
Back at the office, our editor cut and edited the footage to match NEC’s script. Once we had approval for the voice-over audio and background music, we layered those in and added on-screen text. After final approval of all elements, the video was ready to be sent out.
“This video is a complement to our current training and brings together the pre and post trip procedure in its entirety.” – NEC Safety Team
Now, hundreds of bus drivers with National Express will see this training video and know how to get their students to school safely, on time, and ready to learn.
And we’ll never look at a bus the same again.
Love what you see? Take a look at our other motion work.