While the 27th Annual Glass Slipper Gala will not take place until next month, ESI Video is hard at work creating the pre-recorded content for the show. This year the Gala is making a large contribution to help fund the new Fetal Care Center of Southern California, a joint mission of UCI Irvine and CHOC.

To bring awareness to the needs of this new project we recorded testimonies from parents who turned to CHOC to save their unborn babies with heart defects and the heroic children that have overcome these diagnoses.

We interviewed all three families at a park close to the CHOC campus, the same park where we conducted similar interviews for the Gala the year prior. This year, however, we experienced a few unforeseen complications. We had expected the background noise from the park to be at the same levels it had been at the year before, not considering that these interviews took place at the height of stay-at-home orders for the COVID-19 pandemic. With those orders now lifted, the playground was bustling with families and young children playing.

These potential distractions were not an issue thanks to our expertise shooting in all types of environments, yet we found a valuable lesson in the experience — as we resume normal operations following the pandemic, we must also resume location scouting.