The video had moved burly men to tears more than once, so Pittsburgh Public Schools officials knew it packed an emotional punch.

First used at a teacher-training session in January and then in July at a release of the district's test scores, officials played it again Aug. 5 during a critical presentation to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.

Set to the upbeat tempo of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida," the video shows inspiring footage of the city, its heroes and its classrooms, a montage intended to rally teachers to the district's improvement efforts.

"It's the chance of a lifetime," they're told.

Maybe the Gates people agreed.

About two weeks later, the foundation announced that the Pittsburgh district is one of five applicants in line to receive "significant" funding from its $500 million teacher-effectiveness initiative.

In all, the foundation invited 10 school systems to compete for the money and prestigious Gates partnerships.

All presented their final proposals Aug. 5. All had 30 minutes to make their case. Pittsburgh's team -- represented by Superintendent Mark Roosevelt; his deputy, Linda Lane; school board member Thomas Sumpter and Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka -- went last.

The applicants had presented technical aspects of their proposals at a previous gathering in Chicago. The foundation told them to treat the Seattle meeting as a "freestyle" event, Mr. Roosevelt said.

During a rehearsal days before the Seattle meeting, team members noticed pained expressions on the faces of the small group of employees recruited as an audience.

"We weren't communicating the gist of it," Mr. Roosevelt said.

The team retooled the presentation during the weekend.

In the end, the group decided to devote six minutes to the link between effective teaching and the Pittsburgh Promise college scholarship program -- complementing the foundation's interest in college readiness. It also addressed the link between effective teaching and orderly classrooms, something the other teams didn't bring to the table.

The video -- which the district prepared with the help of a production company -- brought some men, including school board members, to tears at the teacher-training and test score events. The team first planned to use it to kick off the Seattle presentation, then decided to close with it instead.

For team members, distilling a 60-page proposal into a half-hour was no mean feat.

"Each of us is able to talk for two hours at a clip without taking a deep breath," Mr. Tarka said.