Our Children, Our Future
In June 2017 we were given the opportunity to support ‘Solution Brokerage’ an all-of-government project that looked to provide much needed response to the small town of Bowraville.
Often in government organisations the videos that are requested are heavily focused around program outcomes and statistics. It was refreshing that we were approached with an open mind of what could be produced. The main objective of the video? Capture the voices of young people. Let them be heard.
Too often what I feel is missing from government communications, is the heart and soul of a project, the intangible, the story’s that can’t be put on paper.
We were sent this reference that highlighted a simple question and answer format where kids were shown highlighting their answers to questions in front of camera on sticky notes. This formed the foundation of how we would convey the voices of young people, without putting the pressure on kids to talk on camera. (Which can sometimes be difficult).
It was also great because it was a tool that was being utlised for the purpose of the workshop. - It wasn’t just for the video.
Now that we’ve established the format in which the voices would be heard we needed to guide the viewer to understand what exactly were they about to watch, in the reference they used simple text on screen.
I knew two things when creating this film.
I wanted to place the audience there, as if they were invited to sit in on this roundtable.
It needed to authentic
So we opted for a documentary approach.
So we start with sweeping shots to place our viewer in a classroom in bowraville.
We also was to stay away from sit down interviews for this narrative and use words that were said in the workshop, which would help the audience feel like they had a seat in the room.
This would be challenging so it was crucial to capture as much of the facilitation as possible to capture much needed audio to craft the narrative in post-production.
We set up a secondary camera in the corner of the room away from the roundtable and guided kids to come up and hold their signs up. I believe most of the kids that were in the room came to hold up what they had written, which typically isn’t what happens when kids are asked to share ideas on camera when they have to speak.
A really impactful way to capture the voices of young people.