Birmingham City Council

Powerful Awareness Film

We were thrilled about this opportunity to produce high impact video content that inspires meaningful social change. The film features interviews with thirteen different people. Among them are local councillors, charitable organisations, and people with personal experiences of homelessness. The variety of contributors necessitated extensive scene-by-scene storyboarding of the film.

Using key messages provided by the client, we sketched the film’s narrative, and following sign-off crafted bespoke interview questions for each participant to elicit our desired key messages. Sourcing a large number of interview locations can be a time-consuming and expensive ordeal: to solve this problem and cut costs for our client, we opted to film all thirteen interviews outdoors in locations across the city. Many of these are popular rough sleeping spots, and so their use in the film visually reinforces the Council’s engagement with the issue.

We adopted a loose, observational videography style throughout. Shooting the footage ‘on the fly’ immediately engages the viewer as it feels familiar – this is the way most of us experience homelessness after all. The style is authentic, grounded. It feels real. We immerse ourselves in the video and connect with the speakers all the better for it.

The video also features an animated sequence covering key statistics about homelessness in Birmingham. This section of the film informs – and shocks – the viewer. We felt such information was an important inclusion, as opening people’s eyes to the severity of the issue makes them more inclined to watch on and learn what they can do to help.