Globally, we are seeing community responses to the current crisis, mutual aids groups and grassroots local support systems. So to celebrate that, this month’s member feature article theme is Community. Our members have shared films, events and virtual projects that have brought both communities and their own teams together, something that couldn’t be more important right now!
Big Button share two projects that are all about community and team work!
This project was for our client Rackspace. We’ve been working with them for over 10 years and amongst other things, produce customer advocacy pieces. We’ve recently produced this customer story for one of their clients that diversified once the pandemic started… Rather than tracking vehicles, they changed their software to provide logistical support for community groups helping during COVID. We also had to change the way we worked, shooting interviews over Zoom.
The second project is for SEGRO, a FTSE 100 organisation celebrating 100 years. We spent 12 months developing a film for them that received over 1 million views in it’s first two weeks… impressive for a B2B piece. To pull it off, we all worked incredibly hard as an extended team against the odds from the start! You can view the film here.
Hamlett Films create film about harm with a community of Grenfell survivors and a fantastic team
We made a film for The Open University’s Criminology course for undergraduate students to begin to think about crimes and, particularly, crimes committed by the state. What is a “harm” is and who can commit this? We worked with Justice4Grenfell and made “Grenfell Tower and Social Murder” with help from the community of survivors and relatives of the victims.
After the film was completed a number of Grenfell community groups came together to provide the local people and survivors a free screening at the Electric Cinema nearby. This turned into an important event because it allowed for the fight and issues to be kept alive among those people waiting for an enquiry and some kind of justice. The experience brought us together as a team – through meeting subjects who experienced the events first hand. In addition our team needed to view the most horrifying footage from those who recorded the scenes from the burning building. It brought to reflect on the events, on what the students would be learning and to integrate our actual working practices into being with the community of survivors. The film then became something which Justice Grenfell felt was really useful for keeping the fight alive and so we brought academics from The Open University provided several academics to take part in a Q&A session at the end of the local screening to provide their take on the enquiry and the fight after a 72 second silence in memory of the 72 deaths. The production team and local community really came together and shared an experience while making the film!
Hosmark cheer up clients with cookery!
Whilst we are not a creative agency, between us we can cook! We made this film to share with clients, a light hearted attempt to keep contact with and hopefully cheer up clients whilst everyone is in a very tough place right now. It was a really fun project for the team and hopefully made our clients smile!
Ashfield Meetings & Events team walk from the UK to Spain!
It’s fair to say we have been missing big parts of our usual working lives, including travelling to interesting and unique locations, the hands-on help and support we give our clients at face-to-face healthcare meetings, live events and congresses, and we’re missing each other! So in the UK we set ourselves a challenge – one that would test our physical abilities, unite us as a team, and act as a reminder of the job we love – The Ashfield Meetings & Events ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) Challenge!
Monitoring our progress through Strava, we had to collectively walk, hike or run the equivalent 1904km from our UK head office in Ashby, to IFEMA in Madrid, Spain in only 14 days! Proud to say we smashed it, even flying past Madrid by 18km. Well done team!
Speakeasy facilitate the first ever virtual EGOS Colloquium: Virtually Fantastic!
This year for the first time ever, the annual EGOS Colloquium went virtual and Speakeasy was very proud to facilitate this ambitious event.
Over the years the scholarly association has hosted its annual event in various locations around the world. However this year, in the interests of EGOSian safety and inclusivity, the EGOS board took the call to cancel the in-person Hamburg event and, in a coincidental nod to the event theme (Organising for a Sustainable Future), opted for a cutting-edge virtual solution. So from the 30th June for 5 days Speakeasy facilitated EGOS’ 36th colloquium online, hosting 2000 attendees from 47 countries.
The EGOS colloquium was a bespoke event designed to satisfy all the requirements of the previous in-person events. Through conversations and planning meetings we built the online EGOS blueprint taking into consideration every detail. The event featured an Opening Plenary & Awards Ceremony, an engaging pre-colloquium programme, International keynote speakers, 6 sub plenary sessions, a virtual exhibition, 54 live concurrent sessions as well as an engaging social programme. Over the course of the 5 day programme this delivered an impressive total of over 470 live sessions! From a technical perspective the event was seamless. We chose to build the event in a platform which gave us the flexibility to integrate different technology, allowing us to deliver a programme which matched the experience of the in-person event as closely as possible.
For guaranteed quality, the opening keynote and award ceremony included pre- recorded videos. We directed these videos remotely, branded them virtually, enhanced the footage and added an animated sting which we created to inject even more brand personality. Live Q and A sessions were inserted in throughout both the live & pre-recorded sessions, all facilitated by our in-house team. Prior to the event, we hosted remote training sessions for speakers to ensure that they were confident using the portal. We also issued them with a detailed User Guide so that they could feel comfortable during their live sessions and get up to speed with the interactive elements such as polling and live Q and A’s.
There was a buzz of excitement and team spirit as our technical whiz team worked tirelessly to deliver a slick, engaging programme of events across time zones. This was a fantastic opportunity in which Speakeasy were able to assist in bringing a community together to allow a wonderful event to continue to take place in unprecedented times, we are very proud of everyone involved! Find out more about our Virtual Events and Remote Filming!
Gavin Knight brings together a global community of production crew!
I recently worked on a project with fellow EVCOM Member, ACrew4U. This project is a about a global community of over 20 production crew who pulled together from different corners of the globe: They filmed themselves during lockdown to create a strong promotional film for ACrew4U.
Camera crew are notoriously shy about stepping out in front of the camera, let alone delivering a script directly into their own lens! But that’s what Sarah persuaded many of them to do during lockdown to demonstrate filming is possible in most countries now. Bill was Executive Producer & Sarah was the Producer. I wrote the script & provided creative direction remotely!
Thank you so much to all of our members who have shared their heartening examples of community, team work and coming together!