Testimonial · OJ Brigance Courage Award
“God was with me in that crash. And he's with me now.”
An FCA project · produced as Regional Marketing Director, FCA Mid-Atlantic
The problem
To honor real courage, you have to tell a genuinely painful story, with care.
Every year, FCA honors the athlete who showed the most courage in the face of real adversity. The hard part never changes. This was year three. When we heard Zoe's, we knew right away: a high school senior, severely injured in a car crash, who lost her best friend in it.
FCA was holding a true story of ministry, how Zoe persevered through her faith and through the people around her, and they needed a way to let their donors actually feel what they were part of.
The approach
Discover the Heartbeat
I started with Patricia, Zoe's coach and FCA connection, who knew the story and prepared Zoe. On the day, I had the crew run the three-camera setup so that the second Zoe walked in, she had my full attention. We talked, I met her friends, and I helped her settle in long before we touched anything heavy.
Craft the Narrative
The throughline was never the tragedy. It was the greatness of God in the middle of it, the way Zoe's faith carried her through and turned the worst season of her life into a story worth telling.
Bring Stories to Life
Three angles, and music that opened heavy and lifted by the end, once it was clear this was not the end of her story. I let a short clip of the news coverage carry the hardest fact instead of asking Zoe to relive it, kept the medical details high level, and held her one breaking moment to a few honest seconds. Enough to feel it. Never enough to exploit it.
The result
The film opened the Maryland FCA banquet as the marquee moment of the night, in front of the ministry's key donors. The room applauded before it finished, and gave Zoe a standing ovation for her courage.
The best I've ever seen.Sirena Alford · FCA
What we delivered
A roughly three-minute story film, the banquet screening, social and YouTube cuts, and reuse in the follow-up with donors.
Have a story like this you've never been able to tell?
Every film needs somewhere to land. The Storytelling System is the part that makes sure it does.