Covid-19 'IN/OUT'
In April 2020, shortly after we were all cast into Lockdown for the first time, like so many people I’m sure I was feeling pretty helpless.
I was watching front line workers literally putting their lives at risk and so many people directly involved in trying to react to the devastating spread of the virus, that I felt just an impotent bystander.
I started thinking about how I could possibly make any kind of positive contribution and realised one of the biggest problems was that whilst so many were heroically giving themselves to protect us, a minority were selfishly ignoring the advice and continuing to act irresponsibly.
At the time, I was working with the editor, Paul Watts, on another project and we started to talk about making a film to reinforce the importance of people staying at home.
Paul’s business partner, Bruce Townend, was working with director Simon Ratigan and soon we also involved Warren Hamilton and Parv Thind from Wave sound studio.
Simon had an idea that drew the parallel between people being either in or out and the distinctive ‘in’ and ‘out’ sounds of a ventilator.
Being careful to make sure the message of the film was consistent with Government messaging, I wrote the words and Parv and Paul did the rest.
We had no brand but also no time to waste so we put the film out on social media and worked like hell to get as many people as possible to share it.
Within a couple of weeks we estimated the film had been seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
We reasoned that if the film persuaded just one person to rethink their behaviour and ended up saving even one life the effort would have been worth it.
IN/OUT
A couple of weeks after launching the ‘In Out’ film, the reaction and comment on social media had been so amazingly positive that I decided to work on a follow up.
Continuing the theme established in the first film, with Paul’s and Parv’s help I made this film and again released it on social media.
The reaction was every bit as positive as with the first film, some people feeling it even stronger.