Last month, Honey Badger Creative had the opportunity to work with the Stanley Chamber of Commerce to create videos documenting Stanley Winterfest 2023.
We were delighted to take on this project and spent hours story-boarding, prepping, and editing to create 5 final videos for the Chamber. Here’s a peek into our process and how we spent the weekend creating content in a wintry wonderland festival.
Preparation
While the team at Honey Badger Creative has worked on numerous video projects together, Winterfest posed a new, exciting challenge of working in cold weather conditions. To prepare for the weekend, the Honey Badger Crew took a day trip up to Bogus Basin Mountain, where we created mock scenarios, braced the cold, and tried out some new equipment.
This fun video was the result of our prep work, and, once we had smoothed out the wrinkles and tested the equipment, we called it a day, went down the mountain, and enjoyed a round of drinks.
Stanley Winterfest Weekend
All prepped and ready, we made the drive from Boise to Stanley, enjoying a beautiful drive up the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway, spotting elk and deer along the way. Once in Stanley, we could feel the town buzzing with preparation for the upcoming festival, just a few hours away.
The Honey Badger Crew spent the subsequent 48 hours hustling and bustling around the town.
We kicked off our video production with some location scouting for the upcoming events, which quickly doubled as sight-seeing the beautiful views of Stanley’s mountains, then fueled up for the evening with the ever-delicious Papa Brunee’s.
After a quick round of pick-up hockey and test-shooting, we kicked off the evening’s festivities at the Kasino Klub with good vibes and great music. We chatted with locals and travelers alike and sensed a growing excitement for the following day’s activities. Over at the Mountain Village music hall, the music was loud and a full luau was underway - well a mountain luau that is! With everyone dressed in cold weather gear, the music, drinks, and company kept everyone’s spirit warm and light throughout the night.The next morning, the Honey Badgers lit our log fire in the cabin and warmed up before the day started. The next 12 hours or so happened in a back-to-back blur that is really only trackable by the camera footage we caught.
From steering a freezing drone, to strapping on a go-pro and winter white water rafting, to hyping up crowds and dancing the night away, down to the real work of editing videos as quickly and as warmly as possible, the Honey Badgers had an unforgettable day at Stanley Winterfest.
Post-Production + Final Products
In the days following the festival, we got to relive the weekend and got down to the work we love - creating. We spent time organizing and mining for the best clips of footage, color correcting the shots, contemplating music choices, and script writing and recording.
You can view the final video below and visit our case study.
Project Highlights
What was your favorite part of working on this project?
Eli:
I’m usually a snow-grinch but hanging out with the Honey Badger team and having new experiences together was my favorite part. The nightlife events really rounded out the work of the day and it was fun to enjoy some drinks and dancing together. It made me forget I was cold for at least one whole minute.
Emilee:
My favorite part of working on the Stanley Winterfest project was getting the opportunity to experience winter in a way that made me forget I was cold! Running down the Ace of Diamonds Street, hyping up the crowd, white water rafting, and dancing at the Kasino Klub at the Disco party were all weekend highlights. In post-production, I enjoyed the task of script writing and recording to match the content of the video. It’s the little puzzles and tinkering that I enjoy about video production projects.
Zach:
The best part of the weekend was working late and eating leftover Papa Brunee’s in front of our woodstove at the cabin where we were staying. It was also really fun to wander the crowd and spend time getting candid footage of all the fun people were having, especially the panda. The whole festival was just full of joy and it was fun to be around that.
Thank you to the Stanley Chamber of Commerce for giving Honey Badger Creative the opportunity to capture the chilly magic of Winterfest!