Find Your Voice

Poetry Out Loud is a poetry recitation competition for high school students. As a nationwide program, the competitions start locally. Winners then advance to regional and/or state competitions before reaching the national Semi-Finals and Finals. To celebrate Poetry Out Loud's 20th anniversary, our team wrote, directed, filmed, and edited this cinematic, motivating short film about the power of poetry. Our goal was to promote Poetry Out Loud by illustrating each stage of a student's journey and honoring poetry's impact.

We composed a custom poem that focuses on the heart of the experience: when you open your mouth to recite a poem, combining the rhythms of the written words with the voice inside of you that is uniquely yours, you can set yourself free and discover the invigorating power of your voice. We cast the 2024 National Champion, Niveah Glover, to recite our poem and be the visual anchor of the film. We opted for a minimalist, but dramatic, medium close-up of Niveah in an empty black space, complementing her incisive and direct delivery. In the edit, we return to her amidst b-roll to emphasize the central message.

Our team filmed b-roll at three different participating high schools. We captured the beginning, middle, and ending stages of a Poetry Out Loud experience, like searching for potential poems, studying them independently, with peers, and with teachers, and then practicing the recitation in a classroom or school auditorium. For the conclusion of the piece, we included footage from past Semi-Finals and Finals to show the real end result of all the practice and self-discovery.

Going into post-production, we utilized sound design to craft a soundscape of forward momentum and increasing confidence. We enlisted a percussive music track to form this beat-driven story, representing the relentless pulse of a fire within. The edit joins all the shapes and sizes of a Poetry Out Loud journey into one powerful rallying cry.

The video premiered for a live audience at the opening of the 2025 National Finals and has since been used as a promotional piece on Poetry Out Loud's Instagram and YouTube.