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In just two weeks from
Writer & Director, Daniel Cox, takes up the story of the film's development and making:
"The Sussex Safer Roads Partnership were already looking to create a road safety campaign with a more positive message and so when I approached Communications Manager Neil Hopkins and his team with ideas for a fresh take on road safety filming, it was evident that were all on the same page in our quest to deliver a powerful message, but in a new way.
“Key to the film's creation was to focus on a message that didn't take a conventional route to shock and scare the audience; rather it was my intention to bring the audience in on the conversation of road safety, specifically seat belts, and the best way to do this was to make a film that could engage the viewer purely visually and could be seen and understood by all, whoever they are and wherever they lived."
Once the idea was locked down, Daniel approached Producer Sarah Alexander to help lift the idea from page to production.
"The Producer's role on any shoot is key and with Sarah onboard, I knew that we could take our small budget and unwavering backing from Sussex Safer Roads Partnership and create the film that we all firmly believed in."
Sarah comments:
‘When Daniel came to me with the idea, I thought it was brilliant and just said yes immediately. Of course I then had to sit down later and think about the realities of it. The challenge was huge as we needed state of the art camera technology, more lighting than they use on a Hollywood feature film and a team of very experienced people that knew what they were doing and could rig and shoot within the tightest of schedules.”
Whilst the story and style chosen appeared relatively straightforward on paper, one particular production challenge was being able to tell the whole story in slow motion - requiring high speed photography. Daniel explains:
"I wanted to create a visual metaphor addressing how a single decision in a person's day can greatly influence both their own and their loved ones' lives. Choosing to film the story inside the family living room represents the feelings many people equate with their own car, in that it represents a level of safety and protection from the 'outer' world. So to create the emotion of this dramatic moment, I wanted to tell the story using slow motion to allow the audience the time to be drawn into the film's world and to let them connect with and project their own feelings onto the scenario playing out before them. I wanted to give the audience the time to breathe, to absorb our message and using slow motion was the right technique to allow this to happen."
To achieve the striking visual style, the team had to find the right tools for the job and with the very generous backing of Take2 Films, they settled on the state of the art Phantom HD made by Visual Research. Take2 really came on board the project and went out of their way to provide the production with the camera and equipment to bring the story to life.
With cast and crew complete, including Austin Spangler, Lara Corrochano and Clare Denning as the family and Director of Photography Luke Scott, production took place at Halliford Studios over a tight two day shoot. With 93 thousand watts of lighting to facilitate the high speed filming, both the cast and crew spent two days in tropical temperatures but without the sea and sand.
With the edit complete, the conclusion of post production moved to Technicolor where colourist Pat Wintersgill helped keep the film’s look as natural as possible.
Daniel comments: "I wanted to keep the audience in the moment and so we kept the film’s look to be subtle and natural, complimenting Luke's onset lighting."
Embrace Life's music was created by composer Sid Barnhoorn who is based in the Netherlands and so this meant the scoring would take place remotely over the internet.
The process started with Daniel giving examples of the music he felt best optimised the emotion and tone of Embrace Life and from these guide tracks Sid worked his magic until the right blend was achieved. With all the musical pieces in place the sound of Embrace Life was complete and Sid's beautiful score brought the making of the project to it's conclusion.
Sarah comments:
“The scariest part of making anything is the first time you show other people. Touching people’s emotions is not a science at all, it is an incredibly difficult thing to do and even after working on it for months you are still not sure how people will react. We always aimed to make something of TV / cinema quality so that is where we launched it. The first time I saw it on a cinema screen in front of an audience of hardened Police officers and realised they were touched, I was sure we had succeeded.”
Neil Hopkins, Communications Manager for the SSRP comments:
“I completely concur with Sarah – the first time we showed Embrace Life was a real 'heart-in-mouth' occasion. From the very earliest concepts, I had complete and utter faith both in the product, and also in Daniel and Sarah, having worked closely with them for 10 months. However, you can never quite be sure how everyone else with react!”
Since launch, Embrace Life has smashed the team's hoping and expectations for coverage. Despite its low budget, the high quality of the product has seen the global community really connect with the film on an emotional, and on a technical, level and this has been helped along by the promotional strategy. Embrace Life is a very different road safety product, and I wanted the marketing and promotion to reflect this.
“We began the campaign with a direct mail strategy, which pointed the message recipients to a website showing nothing but a logo and a count-down timer. Response to this was excellent, and the social networks (such as Twitter and Facebook) started reporting the beginning of the campaign, since no-one knew what it was for (as intended).
“We then moved to an above-the-line poster/flier campaign, again just pushing people to the website, and selected specific sites to carry the message based on footfall and area demographic.
“The aim was to promote the website – www.embracethis.co.uk – and initiate chatter across the social networks as individuals worldwide started to wonder what the logo was about.”
This early strategy appears to have worked well, with seeds sown with key influencers throughout the media and advertising/design communities for the launch of the campaign on 20 January.
However, there was to be one more 'twist'. Neil explains:
“Whilst in Brighton, I happened to notice a wall covered with graffiti – a fairly uncommon occurrence as the City Council is so proactive in removing illegal tags.
“It then struck me that using graffiti in an artistic, stylistic, way would allow us to bring the Embrace Life campaign truly to 'street level' and help to clean up the built environment at the same time.”
Sarah Leach from Brighton and Hove's City Clean team was instrumental in connecting the campaign with Aroe, one of the South East's most prominent and respected graffiti artists.
Aroe jumped on board with the project, helping to identify sites and then repaint them with the Embrace Life logo – up to 20 feet high in some cases.
“Being able to work with an artist of Aroe's calibre, and with the backing of the City Clean team, allowed us to do something very different with Embrace Life,” Neil concludes.
“Working at street level enhanced the concurrent billboard/six-sheet (bus shelter side) campaign that we also used to raise awareness.
“Every aspect of the promotional campaign has been designed to excite curiosity in the viewer, and drive them to www.embracethis.co.uk where they can watch the film.”
Social media has been a particular driving force of this campaign. One Embrace Life viewer was so impressed that she set up a Facebook group dedicated to getting the film on national TV. And Twitter has been filled with tweets and retweets promoting the film to all audiences.
Embrace Life has now reached 129 different countries, is the 5th top rated video this month on YouTube and is the most top rated YouTube film of all time in the education category.
By the end of March 23010, it is hoped that Embrace Life will be booked into Sussex cinemas as well as confirming a number of worldwide distribution deals. Keep checking this website for further updates as they happen!
