The brief
Sharing experience of progress
No Limits is a Hampshire charity that is instantly recognisable if you’re a local. They are an institution that has been helping young people for so long. The services they offer are so varied, just like the experiences of the young people they support, that it’s almost hard to pin down exactly what they do. The essence of it though is that they help young people to live safe and fulfilling lives.
No Limits were celebrating their 30th birthday and they wanted to create something special. They wanted to create a brand film that spoke directly to who they are and the impact that they make on young people’s lives. More than that though, they wanted to express gratitude and encourage further support. They’re a charity, which means they need donations in order to continue the work that they do. Expressing gratitude and asking for this to continue was an important part of No Limits’ future plans.
The film was going to be shown at their 30th birthday celebration event and needed to do a number of things. Firstly, it had to express everything mentioned above. Most importantly though, it had to capture the essence of what the charity is and the impact it has on real people’s lives. The story for the film needed to show that by accessing No Limits’ various forms of support, the storytellers we were working with have been able to change their lives for the better.
What we did
This film was always going to be people centric. People are what the charity is all about and what makes it so special. However, you have to be careful with people, especially if you’re going to ask them to share some of their most difficult moments on camera. We made it clear that we wanted to protect our storytellers in any way that we could. The biggest part of this was running through a pre-interview with each of them. We used this call to run them through the process, to express how everything would be done on their terms and to get a sense of their story. The primary focus was storyteller welfare, but sharing their stories with us in advance did help our planning.
The difficulty with trying to tell a story about a charity that does so much is that you don’t want to overwhelm the audience but you also don’t want to miss things. In short, it can be a little tricky. Because we had those pre-interview calls, we were able to make a clear and concise story plan. We could use this document to collaborate with No Limits and to guide the narrative of the film (without losing authenticity) before getting anywhere near post-production.
In terms of production, we were a little limited on resources. From No Limits’ perspective, they wanted something that was almost entirely interview based. The only location we could use was their main building, which is made for supporting young people not for filming. We had a decent sized space to work with, but it was necessarily filming ready. No worries, it just meant that we had to move things around and get a little creative. With a bit of impromptu set design and throwing some practicals in the background we were able to create a great looking interview space.
The interviews themselves were pretty standard from a technical point of view because the focus for us was really on the storytellers. We wanted to capture their story in the best way possible without putting too much pressure on them. We were also keen to capture some visuals, just to give us some flexibility in post if we needed it. To do this we spent a little time shooting portrait shots and some extreme closeups that we could thread into the film at particularly emotive points of the story.
The story for the film really came together in post-production. We transcribed our interviews and set about following our story plan (which was super handy for our interviews). But we also wanted to explore different avenues or pull out some of the more specific points our storytellers made. All of this was weaved together in the edit, making sure we could share personal stories whilst also telling a wider story about No Limits as a charity.
The technical
Concept development
Story development
Story plans
Schedules and timelines
Pre-interviews
1 day of filming
Editing
Music licensing
Social cuts
The result
Lived experiences shared far and wide
The film was shown at the 30th birthday event for the charity and the feedback was frankly incredible. The way the film made people feel and the way it showed the impact of the charity is something that we’re super proud of. We’re also proud of the storytellers who stepped forward to share their stories so that other young people could be helped. It was a brave thing to do and we’re certain that people will have found the courage to seek help or to donate as a result of their contribution.
The film and associated social cuts now sit as central pieces of content that play a wider role in the marketing strategy of the charity.
