Kent County Council wanted a hard-hitting film to help them address increasingly problematic antisocial behaviour among some young people across the county. They asked us to create content which targeted bullying, domestic abuse and knife crime. The work would be used by both the council and police in schools, at youth coaching and on their website and social feeds.

We felt that the key to the success of this project was to speak to young people in a language and through scenarios that they related to. Authenticity would be the key to delivering the performances and dialogue that would grab people’s attention and hit home with the messaging. We carried out extensive auditions in local acting groups within Kent, as well as running a workshop with young offenders in Kent to discuss the creative concepts and the language used by the perpetrators and victims in the scripts.

We decided to create a family of three films which can be used in conjunction with each other or as stand-alone pieces. We also shared some of the actors between the scenes - so in one film for example we see a girl as a bully who herself is being bullied in another scene. This is a subtle nod to some of the root causes of the problems.

The films were shot in and around Ramsgate and Margate and all the content was captured on a glorious hot sunny day. We were delighted by the powerful performances of our protagonists and we applied a contrazoom to exaggerate the isolation of the victim. The films themselves have received a lot of attention and feedback, almost all very positive but some slightly more challenging around sensitive issues such as whether we should feature the actual moment of the boy being stabbed. In the end, the client decided not to show that film in full as it could have upset victim families and so we have created a redacted version for our website.