Turning complexity into a clear, compelling story

PACCo was a major environmental project involving multiple organisations, two countries and some significant changes to sensitive coastal landscapes. My job was to turn a complicated story into clear video content for very different audiences.

The challenge

PACCo was an EU-funded project exploring how developed estuaries could adapt to the effects of climate change, with pilot projects in Devon and on the north coast of France.

I was originally approached by Clinton Devon Estates and went on to work closely with the Environment Agency, alongside DEFRA and a number of other UK and French partners.

Communicating the project wasn’t straightforward. There were multiple stakeholders, complex environmental issues and significant changes being made to the landscape. Different audiences also needed very different levels of information.

The challenge wasn’t simply to document what was happening. It was to work out what each audience needed to understand and how best to communicate it.

Developing the video strategy

I worked with the project team to identify the different audiences, the messages we needed to communicate and the type and length of film that would work for each.

Public-facing content needed to make some quite complicated environmental issues accessible and explain why potentially controversial changes to the landscape were necessary.

Stakeholder content could go into considerably more technical detail, while shorter films were needed for presentations, conferences and other situations where the whole story had to be communicated quickly.

I developed the interview questions for each film and directed interviews with specialists and stakeholders, helping contributors shape their answers around the needs and knowledge of each particular audience.

Telling the whole story

The main film was approximately nine minutes long and provided an overview of the entire PACCo project.

It introduced the two pilot sites, explained the challenges they faced and explored the proposed solutions through interviews with the people involved.

Different films for different audiences

Rather than expecting one film to do everything, we created a series of films for different purposes.

Some explored the more technical aspects of the project for stakeholders, covering subjects including ecology, wildlife, funding, benefits for local communities and the practical outcomes of the work.

At the other end of the spectrum, a film of under three minutes was produced for use at a conference, distilling a complex, multi-year project into a concise and engaging introduction.

Working across two languages

As a partnership between organisations in the UK and France, the content also needed to work in both languages.

I managed the translation process with specialist translation companies and oversaw subtitling and delivery, ensuring the appropriate versions were available for English and French-speaking audiences.

This added another layer to the production process, particularly where technical environmental terminology and the precise meaning of interview responses needed to be maintained.

The result

Over the course of the project, I delivered nine films involving 23 interviews and material from both sides of the Channel.

The films were used across PACCo’s website and communications, with all content delivered to the project’s deadlines.

The relationship also continued beyond PACCo, with Clinton Devon Estates subsequently commissioning me to produce further stories following the development of the area in the years after the original project.

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