We wanted to create a really engaging film to support children and young people in their personal preparation for a pre-hearing visit. The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) is a national body focused on children and young people most at risk. It facilitates the work of children's reporters, deploys and manages staff and provides suitable accommodation for Children's Hearings.
Our approach to this project was to create a Point-Of-View film, that shows directly (from a young person’s POV )the experience of arranging and attending a pre-hearing visit.
To make this film interesting and appealing to the main audience of children and young people, we utilised a selection of mobile phone based interactions throughout the film, all seen by the audience in first person, as the main protagonist receives, sends and views them within the film.
Cementing the main actor in the real-life surroundings of the SCRA premises, interacting with staff there in this first-person format is not only engaging, but also helps to showcase a true representation of the pre-hearing visit, in a thoroughly authentic way. Placing the viewer right in the driving seat in this story – helping them feel even more connected to the film. This in turn, raises their level of comfort and confidence, and will hopefully help empower them to interact with the support services offered by SCRA.
From the initial script given to us by SCRA, we created a scene by scene storyboard which then allowed us to work together to develop the details of the film. When casting for our main actors, we had to bear in mind that our lead young actress would at points beactually filming. So she had to receive training and instruction on the logistics of this as well as be able to deliver the natural performance we were looking for. Aside from the role of the Social/Support worker, which was also an actress, the other role was played by an SCRA staff member who conducts these pre hearing visits in real life.
To achieve the right look and feel of this first person point of view film, we used an OSMO camera to capture the footage (with a little bit of help from an FS7). The added benefit of this is that it is light and easily portable and therefore comfortable for our actress to hold and carry.
To incorporate the mobile phone interactions throughout the film, our in-house motion graphic artists created a series of stylised pop up animations. These helped to show the audience the conversations our lead actress was involved in about her pre-hearing visit. Making these animations pop out of the screen and overlay on top of the live footage, made them much easier to read and when accompanied with corresponding alert sound effects, felt very realistic.