Travel and tourism works with local photographer to produce videos

Hot Springs County's Travel and Tourism Board recently produced some new videos to advertise the area to bring in new tourism business. The board's director Jackie Dorothy said, "We are raising awareness of what Hot Springs County has to offer and the best way to do this is visually."

Dorothy said she comes from a video background and storytelling. She said, "one of the things that I've been wanting to do is tell the story of Hot Springs County. We have the hot springs, that's our number one attraction, but we also have so much more to offer and that's what we wanted to showcase. Take what Hot Springs County is and show it in all aspects. We are not just doing videos, but we're doing radio. We are doing it digitally and going on all avenues."

Through the recommendation of Dorothy's husband, Dean King, they were approached by Jeb Schenck of Schenck Photography. Schenck presented some ideas on a new, fresh take to visually tell the story of the county using a combination of drone cinematography and ground-level shooting. Dorothy said, "I really liked the vision. I liked the idea that it was going to showcase the scenic areas, the beauty of Hot Springs County, and it was doing it from an insider. People who have lived here for so long that know the area and appreciate the beauty. And can show people who have never even heard of Thermopolis or Hot Springs Wyoming why they should come and visit, especially during the time of lockdown."

Dorothy said that the audience she is trying to reach is, "People that have extra money that want to travel. As I was diving into what kind of travelers we were looking for, there is a whole segment called health and wellness travelers. There are travelers from hot springs to hot springs. There are those who have never been to hot springs, but we are definitely going after those that want to travel.

"A big market I am going after is the front range of Colorado because they are close by, it's not that far of a drive. Also, those that are going to Yellowstone or have it planned on other trips and are thinking of getting away, doing something different, getting out in the outdoors, and that's why one of our campaigns is "social distancing was here before it was necessary". We want people to know you can get outside, breathe the fresh air, and just enjoy yourself and get back to getting well," added Dorothy.

Schenck said that Dorothy looked at a series of photographs he did and she looked at his book the "Four Season of the Hot Springs". He said they saw that I knew what I was doing photographically.

He added, "The approach was really quite different. We were going to do a completely fresh perspective, not just ground level, with a lot of colors, with a lot of motion. I knew I needed to grab the viewer's attention, even in a very short clip. Some of the places to shoot were technically pretty complicated. It required running some test footage to see just what the challenges were. We then started to shoot in earnest at the end of May and all throughout the summer. We shot well over a terabyte of footage, a number of scenes from different angles, from the state park, the terraces, to T Hill, Monument Hill, through town, the floats of the river, north of town on the river, out in the countryside, Legend Rock, the canyon, lots of stuff on the canyon, from the rims with permits."

Schenck said regarding music and editing, "You can have great footage but you have to have the editing and the music selected is what pulls it all together and creates a work of attractive art. It's what pulls a person in emotionally, it's what pulls the eye in and they have to work seamlessly together. And we are fortunate at Schenck Photography. We have some people who are highly skilled in this and have decades of experience of using music in a very powerful way with the visuals, so much so you can get by without narration or voice-overs."

Dorothy asks that the local community support the board's YouTube channel Hot Springs Wyoming. She said, "We do need to get up to 100 subscribers. So if you could subscribe to it that would be great because that would enable us to actually have a real name on YouTube so that we are even more searchable."

Dorothy added that she hopes to have a public showing of all the videos they created.

Schenck said in regard to the production process, "Throughout this, we worked very closely with Dorothy and the Travel and Tourism Board. We kept them appraised of what was going on, periodically showing them our progress."

Not only was the board supportive of the productions, but so was the local community. Schenck said about the people he approached, "A lot of people knew me, a lot of people from out of town did not, I explained to them what we are doing, trying to shoot a promotional video of what people can come here to see and do. We had incredible support from the locals, the businesses, the schools, the kids. With all the shooting we only had one person who was not happy and that's out of 500 to 600 people that we did the videos with. A lot of people went out of their way to help us. Some of that footage is in the final cuts, and some of it has yet to be used. The state park was extraordinarily helpful. I kept Kevin Skates in the loop all the time of what was going on. He was very helpful. I can't thank the community enough for their cooperation. I think everyone recognized that it would help Thermopolis and bring tourism back."

Dorothy concluded, "We're going to continue expanding on our videos. We're going to keep getting our message out there. People are getting excited to travel again and that's what we want to encourage, come visit us."