#EverySecondCounts - Showing the importance of saving time to save lives for the North West Ambulance Service

We joined forces with the brilliant Smoking Gun team to produce and direct a powerful film with an important message for the North West Ambulance Service.

When someone’s life in on the line, every…second…counts.

So, we wanted to show exactly that with an impactful script that shows the effects that non-emergency calls can have on the emergency services - in real time.

We used split screen edit transitions to show a real emergency call not getting through as non-emergency calls created a queue. Fast cuts of call handlers, paramedics and dispatch showcased the amazing work that NWAS do and the narrative was designed to show how the general public can help them do their job to the best of their abilities if people ring 111 in non-emergencies. This will then save more lives as their time is precious. As is the time of those who really need them most.

Every year, NWAS face increasing demand for their services during the colder months. nIt’s no secret that the 999 service is there to bring you emergency care when in a life-threatening situation, but the 111 online service is equally there to support you with your urgent medical needs.
You can find out more about NWAS at https://www.nwas.nhs.uk/

#GetsOnYourNerves - Raising awareness of Multiple Sclerosis with the MS Trust

What got on your nerves today? Traffic? The weather? Work?

We wanted to highlight these trivial problems and how they compare to the real problems those with Multiple Sclerosis face every single day.

To bring this idea to life, we created a film in partnership with Couch Health and The Gate Films to raise awareness of #MSUncovered for the MS Trust.

MS gets on the nerves of 130,000 people across the UK. Literally.

The MS Trust is here to help – today and every day.

We invited members of the public into a studio to come in and answer what got on their nerves today and received some brilliantly comedic and natural answers. This juxtaposed with the answers to the same question we posed to people with MS and created a powerful switch in tone. Check it out for yourself below.


You can find out more about MS at https://www.mstrust.org.uk/about-ms.

#StopCyberbullyingDay - Working with influencers to spread positivity online

For Stop Cyberbullying Day 2019, we created a short film featuring Instagram star Chessie King which was filmed in various locations across London. The script was delivered in the form of poetry, written by spoken word artist Emma Sykes, and featured a beautifully composed soundtrack. The film was directed and produced by us and filmed and edited by Radford Nicholls. It was viewed over 725,000 times on Twitter in 24 hours, breaking a new campaign record for Cybersmile!

Previously in 2018, we created & starred in a video with Trunk containing messages of support for #STOPCYBERBULLYINGDAY from celebrities across the world.

Several edits of the film were produced to be optimised for the influencers’ social feeds. Rather than them sharing the video from our feed, we sent the film directly to them to upload on their own channels, resulting in much more engagement with hundreds of thousands of views overall. To make the campaign even stronger, we ran a One Minute Brief to coincide with the trending hashtag and create lots of shareable content to spark conversation around cyber-bullying on the day. This was then used in articles and blogs to amplify the campaign further.

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#StrongerTogether - Celebrating the local heroes of Tameside

Working with Quest Media and the local people of Tameside, we created 9 films to document some of the amazing things people are doing for the local area and how Quest’s plan to bring on-air, online and in print together in one place will help them and their businesses/causes.

Whilst producing the interviews in key places around the Tameside area, we captured the local heroes with a photography shoot where the content was used across digital media and poster during the launch and at the premier of the new newspaper where key figures of the local community were invited.

We were delighted to attend the successful event and see first-hand the response to the spoken word piece we put together that featured a poem, written in such a way that it was about the media offering but also reflected what our local people do. The whole idea from start to finish is that this new offering was all about being Stronger Together, and we wanted to connect everyone together as well as include the staff at Quest to encapsulate. We loved working with the great team at Quest and hope to work again with them soon!

You can see all of the interviews here.

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#LyttleFight - Using the C-word to help Isabella

We were approached by Isabella’s godmother to run a One Minute Briefs campaign to raise awareness and encourage donations to the charity. The campaign itself had huge reach but we didn’t stop there. Together with the family, we developed a script for a film based on one of the ideas by @ZedTrafficker that at only 10 years old, Isabella shouldn’t know the ‘C’ word. A film was then made and edited by our friends at Trunk and sent out via the charity Facebook feed. Within hours it had 1 million views and captured the attention of publishers across the world who wanted to buy the rights and share the profits. We declined these offers as we felt it had more sharing potential and the more people see it, the more people will donate. It quickly received 10 million views on Unilad, as well as featuring on The Hook, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and BBC National News. We ran further One Minute Briefs campaigns and asked for people to send in their own videos to ‘the C-word’ and nominate others to do the same. This helped make the campaign go even more viral and has helped the family to raise more than £100,000 towards getting Isabella the life-saving treatment in America she needed.

Unfortunately, we received the awful news that she never became well enough to be able to have the treatment and sadly passed away. The money raised will now go to help other people and we will continue to support the family in the future.

#LoveYourNHS - Beating Bieber to Christmas Number 1

Love Your NHS was created when we collaborated with the Gate Films on an NHS themed One Minute Brief and it reached well over half a million people on Twitter and Facebook in it’s first day. We ran a competition asking people to send in their film ideas to show what the NHS means to them in uncertain times. The winning idea was created by @StephenHunter21 and featured an emotive concept based on traditional wedding vows.

As part of the ‘vows’ theme, we asked NHS staff and the general public to send pictures of themselves holding up a sign saying ‘I DO’ for #LoveYourNHS.  We receive a huge amount of pictures from people, including Michael Sheen, Chris Evans, Piers Morgan, Holly Willoughby, Luke Shaw & Jessie Ware along with mass support from the public.

Off the back of this, we created a @LoveYourNHS account on Twitter & Facebook which, along with @OneMinuteBriefs created content and gave the #NHS4XmasNo1 a huge push socially by reaching millions of people without any budget. This helped the campaign reach celebrities and encourage other people to get involved. Once the race began on the 18th December, it was clear that we were in a very close battle with Justin Bieber after overtaking One Direction and the X-Factor winner Louisa in the live chart. We were neck and neck all week but Bieber opened up a lead which we closed the next day after appearing on the Chris Evans Radio Show. After this we spent many hours at the top of the iTunes and Amazon chart which shows that we had overtaken Bieber in the race. Justin Bieber then showed his support for our campaign via Twitter which raised awareness of the NHS across the world as we hit SKY and BBC News.

And… we did it. On Christmas Day the official charts were announced. We were the official Xmas Number 1 2015 and saw our music video before the Queen’s speech. Surreal.