How Jewish Organizations Can Make Great Reels Even When You Didn’t Capture the Footage You Wanted

A Practical Guide to Authentic Reels for Jewish Organizations

When you work in schools or community organizations long enough, you start to see everything through a planning lens. We plan programs. We plan the curriculum. We plan events with intention, structure, and forward-thinking clarity. Without even realizing it, we start approaching social media the same way, expecting that if we prepare well enough, the moment we imagined will be the moment we capture and the moment we are excited to share on social media.

Reels within Jewish organizations don’t work that way. Here’s Why:  

When we create programs, we’re fully present, focused on the experience, attentive to the children, the parents, the teaching, and the energy in the room. We’re leading, not observing, and what we capture is whatever naturally unfolded.

Every unscripted moment holds a story parents want to feel.

That’s precisely why our programs resonate. The connection, the meaning, the joy, none of it is staged. It’s a lived experience our community feels. We don’t script reactions or choreograph joy. We don’t force a moment because it would make a great hook. We show up wholeheartedly, shape the experience, and our community naturally reflects the values and meaning at the heart of what we do.

So yes, the footage we actually capture won’t always match the picture we had in our heads, but it will always be true to the experience, and that is where the best reels begin.

What a Reel Actually Needs: 

Most of the frustration I hear from leaders about making reels comes from expecting them to behave like a planned program. So the first step to remember is that reels are not created by planning; the ingredients are the actual presence, not scripts. 

Here are the ingredients that help any reel feel alive, modern, and true to the moment:

1. A movement-based opening:

Movement earns attention, especially in that first second where someone decides whether to keep watching.

Movement can be simple:

• kids walking

• hands carrying something

• turning the camera toward a scene

• a door opening

• a burst of laughter

Anything that feels alive.

2. Short clips:

Keep each clip under a second. Short clips carry energy, align with how people watch today, and often make imperfect footage feel intentional. They have the power to turn even simple stories into something engaging, and that alone can elevate an entire reel.

3. Constant visual change:

Not chaos — just variety.

• A new angle.

• A new child.

• A new detail.

• A new facial expression.

Visual change keeps viewers emotionally present.

4. Let video lead; use still images only when they strengthen the story:

Video brings movement and warmth, and still images bring emphasis when needed.

Use images if:

• The video missed a detail

• A still captures an emotion better

• The moment needs a pause

But not to cram everything in.

The reel tells the story. The carousel can hold the memories.

5. Your emotional anchor guides the order:

This is where your deeper storytelling comes into play.

If you’ve downloaded the Exclusively Yours Storytelling Framework, this will feel natural; you already know how to identify the feeling behind the moment.

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For reels, that emotion guides:

• Which clips do you choose

• how quickly they shift

• What you want people to walk away feeling

Use the storytelling framework as a compass, not a script.

6. A closing moment (optional)

Sometimes a final clip reinforces the emotion. Sometimes the reel ends exactly where it needs to. Let the moment guide you.

How a School Leader Created a Strong Reel With Only a Single Clip

This Moment Wasn’t Planned. But It Still Told the Story.

A leader I was working with recently wanted to create a reel about her students baking cookies and delivering them to the local fire station. She imagined capturing the “beginning moments”: the mixing, the teamwork, the preparation, the excitement.

As happens to the best of us during the baking, she was fully present in the experience, but none of that ended up on video, only images. 

What she did have was one clip: the children walking down the sidewalk, cookie boxes in hand, heading toward the fire station.

If that’s my only movement, and “That’s the ending,” she struggled, “How do I start a reel with the end?”

This is where leaders get stuck: we worry about the footage we didn’t get.

But the viewer doesn’t know what was “supposed” to be there; they need a moment that pulls them in so the meaning can unfold.

So I asked her, “If this clip were the beginning of the story, what would the story be? What is the story this clip wants to tell?”

She thought for a moment and then said: “They worked so hard baking all morning…but the real sweetness wasn’t the cookies. It was the excitement of giving something they had worked so hard to make to the firemen."

And that’s when her opening came to life. She used the walking clip as the hook, pairing it with an overlay that said:

“Here’s why this moment mattered.”

That single line changed everything.

It turned her “ending” into a beginning because now the viewer leaned in:

“What moment?”

“What happened?”

“What made it matter?”

Then she let the rest of her footage support that meaning:

Clip 1 (opening hook):

Walking clip + overlay: “Here’s why this moment mattered.”

→ pulls the viewer into the meaning path

Clip 2:

Photos of the baking

→ “Yes, they worked hard…” (more overlays that highlight the preparation)

Clip 3:

Smiles + cookies

→ “…but the real sweetness was the welcome they received.”

Clip 4:

Approaching the fire station door→ delivers the emotional impact

She didn’t need the “perfect beginning.” She needed to understand how the one clip she had could work for her. 

And once she did, her reel felt stronger, not weaker. More real, not less. More meaningful, not staged. She worked with what she had and let the overlays carry the story where the footage couldn’t.

This Is the Part I Want Every Leader to Hear

You don’t create reels with the footage you planned. You create reels with the footage you captured.

When you understand what the format needs, the pressure lifts, and you stop searching for the “perfect clip.” The story you're trying to share isn’t in perfect footage; it’s in the real moment and in your ability to shape it with clarity, presence, and purpose.

And that’s precisely where authentic marketing begins. In reality, this is not just about reels. It’s about the work we do every day: showing up with intention, creating meaning, and inviting people into something valuable.  When we share our stories with clarity and honesty, people don’t just “watch.” They feel it.

And that’s what Jewish organizations do best. We don’t manufacture moments. We create environments where meaning naturally unfolds.

Reels are just the way we let others see a story that is Exclusively Yours.

Rochie