A few days ago, a six-piece documentary about football (the global, soccer version) launched on Amazon Prime. The new series about the world’s most popular sport is the result of a five-year production process that included movie producers, sports fans, and multinational corporations in a series of unexpected connections that started with a two-minute trailer video. This video and the connections can teach us two important lessons about how great vision communicated with clarity and passion can turn an idea into a reality.
The Story
As with every great project, this one started with an idea and a bold move. Documentary film maker Raimon Masllorens and journalist John Carlin shared the vision of a documentary about the passion of football. What they did next contradicts the “rules” of filmmaking. They made a movie trailer before they had shot even one scene of their film. One article describe the trailer as:
“Two minutes and 36 seconds of drums, chanting, flag-waving fans, tears, sweat, agony, goals and near-misses. Set to the sound of a soaring opera aria, the trailer features a host of football players from around the world, both the game’s biggest stars and children kicking water bottles around dusty sandlots.”
That simple video presentation was enough to light a fire in the hearts of producers and distributors, including the CEO of a major global corporation and one of the world’s streaming media giants. This story illustrates two powerful outcomes of a clearly communicated vision.
A well communicated vision turns strangers into stakeholders. Visionaries have been living with their dream and brainstorming about it for quite some time and brainstorming. They can see the desired outcome clearly in their minds. On the other hand, everyone else is completely in the dark about it. Good visionaries understand that when they cast vision, they need to paint a crystal-clear picture of the preferable future they envision, how it is going to get done and, more than everything, why this vision must become a reality. Apparently, Masllorens and Carlin’s two-minute video did just that.
A well communicated vision creates advocates. When a compelling vision is communicated with clarity and passion, new stakeholders become “evangelists” for the vision, sharing it with others and repeating #1 all over. In the case of the documentary series, the trailer ended up in the hands of the president of a major global coffee brand, bringing the power and resources of that large corporation into the equation and allowing the series to becoming a reality.
It all started with a vision, but the documentary series would have never become a reality if it wasn’t for the original video. Without any words, it cast the vision of the authors with clarity and passion.
Do you have vision burning in you? How can you cast it so that other people will become stakeholders and advocates for it?
Now, for an interesting Post Script. At the writing of this post, I haven’t watched any of the documentaries yet, but you can be sure I will be checking them out the first opportunity I can. That is the power a well communicated vision has.
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