Get Engaged - the making of the film
The Engage for Success Task Force had a vision that the work of the movement would speak to both the hearts and minds of people across the UK.
The rational side of the case for engagement has been catered for well in the evidence report also released on the 12th November. However we also wanted something that would speak to the the emotions. It is now commonly known amongst the scientific community that emotions rule the brain's decisions.
So, David and Nita had been in touch with Pete Stevenson at The Edge Picture Company and had established that they were not only an award winning organisation that do fantastic work but that their values were aligned to that of the movement.
Although we had no money to make a film it was always an ambition to do it. The Edge Picture Company had produced some brilliant initial concepts. Pete and the team really believed in this and wanted to help us, and they were giving us as much time and expertise as they could afford, but there were some costs that they simply could not afford to swallow.
The Dept of Business Innovation and Skills and Wates Giving both long time contributors to the movement realised what an important piece of work this would be in spreading the word about employee engagement. They came to our aid and each pledged the sum of money required to cover the outstanding elements needed to make the film possible.
I was only a few weeks into my secondment when David asked me to work with the team at The Edge picture Company and project manage this piece of work for the core team at Engage for Success.
David, Nita, Russell Grossman (Communications Director at the Dept of BIS) and I, met with Pete Stevenson, and Andy Hardwick the producer to talk about the overall concept.
They showed us examples of other films they had produced and we were able to indicate what felt right and what didn't for this particular film.
We consulted with various people from within the movement to get their thoughts and ideas.
Agreement was made to progress an idea and the team at The Edge Picture Company got to work developing the script.
I booked in a weekly meeting with the team as my role was really to be supportive, help them to get the resources, contacts and approvals they needed to enable the production to go smoothly. They were doing the hard work and I needed to support them in whatever way was needed.
I co-ordinated the feedback on the script from various stakeholders from within the movement. The Edge took test shots of the potential actors and sent them over to us to review and choose the final actor, we agreed on all details down to what the main actor would wear.
Soon enough it was time for sign it all off! Everyone loved it too and so away we went!
It was really important to the concept of the film that real workplaces were used. But the time frames we were working to were incredibly tight and we had to find a good spread from offices, to NHS, to warehouses etc. We reached out to our community of people from within the movement and we had a number of offers of support. The team at The Edge had to go and reccie each venue there were specific requirements of each location. To add a further layer of complexity because of logistics they all had to be pretty close to each other to make each day productive where plenty of the footage could be shot.
This was a real challenge and Sarah Baaker assisted by Laura Clarke just took it all their stride. I really don't know they co-ordinated that, with people offering up venues, last minute changes to deal with and and a challenge to find that end shot location!
BT, who have supported us enormously throughout, came through with that last locaton, more specifically Cathy Brown did some serious pulling of strings! Although the shot is designed to look like it could be any city, as this is not a London specific movement, the shot from the BT Tower gave us the ending we needed.
Ed Wright got to work on putting the footage together. I am no expert, I can use iMovie and have ambitions to learn FinalCutPro but even from my limited experience I can imagine the amount of footage they had to work through, the piecing the story together on the screen. Colour grading it just right, making the timings and the music work. Even a short film like ours takes hours of painstaking attention to detail.
When the final cut was ready we were invited to The Edge Picture Company editing suite to watch it. At one end of the room was the edit equipment, so many dials and buttons it looked like a cockpit! Above it was a large flatscreen. The lights were turned down and the film set to play.
The mix of emotions on watching it was unreal. The story had come to life on screen even better than I had hoped, the picture was so crisp, they had clearly done an extremely good job of it. I felt the actor portrayed our 'everyman' so well. It dawned on me just how much work had gone into it, no matter how easy they make it look! No matter how easy they were to work with.
But most of all, I was moved by the message behind it.
I am an emotional creature by nature so it will surprise no one to hear that I welled up somewhat and had a lump in my throat the whole time. The feeling that maybe, just maybe this film might inspire people to think more about employee engagement. Question their interpretation about the concept and consider how it feels to be on the receiving end.
After we saw it for the first time we sat back in stunned silence for a few moments. This must have been really difficult for the team at the Edge as they waited patiently for our reactions.
Then spontaneously we all clapped and laughed and said thank you to the team that had done the job.
Although this was a pivotal moment the journey was far from over. We might think the work of The Edge Picture company hit the nail on the head but what really matters is what everyone else thinks! This is designed to be one of the tools we provide people to help start a conversation about engagement and their opinion counts the most.
Lorenzo Culora made sure it was available to us, in all the right formats, from files uploadable to youtube through to ipad versions. He was so quick to respond to my often last minute requests. I thank him dearly for that!
We shared it for the first time at a Task Force meeting. The feeling was overwhelmingly positive. Uses for it were being thought up from every corner of the room.
Shortly afterwards we shared it with the Guru Group - again it was warmly received by the majority. With ideas of how it could be used with their connections and clients being put forward.
We agreed to keep it under wraps until the 12th November when the website went live, to enable it to have the biggest impact.
The attendees of the CEO Breakfast watched it on the morning of the launch where it got a very positive reception. Which is just as well as it is the support of this community which breathes energy into the movement in the form of much needed resources.
The rest of the community and beyond were also watching it at a great pace and today, 4 days into the 'go live' period it has been watched over 1500 times.
Although 1500 people seeing the video is a good start, we have a whole lot more work to do to get it into the hands of practitioners and employees accross the country! To help it get out there enough to really make a difference.
Many in our community are helping to do this through blogging about it, including it in newsletters, sharing it on their intranets, with clients, on websites. I would encourage you to do so too.
So what do you think? Where and with whom might you share this?
If you need any ideas or support please get in touch with me or one of the Engage for Success team.
