Producing a short documentary on the partnership keeping Southampton’s streets safer: The Safer Streets 4 story
A film commission by Southampton City Council
We were commissioned to tell the story on film of how Southampton City Council and its partners, supported by The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Hampshire, delivered its Home Office-funded Safer Streets 4 (SS4) project.
The film needed to encapsulate the issues driving the funding, including violence against women and girls, safety in the night-time economy, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime.
It also needed to show the full range of work being delivered by a wide range of statutory voluntary and community sector partners and the early outcomes and success factors associated with the project.
Our involvement spanned a six-month period in mid-2023 and the film was shown to Home Office representatives at an SS4 monitoring meeting in August and then disseminated online.
A social media awareness-raising campaign followed, utilising the digital assets produced as part of the project.
How we delivered the project
We worked closely with the dedicated team at Southampton City Council from Stronger Communities, Wellbeing and Housing Services.
This included Chris Smith, Suzanne Townsend, and Lisa Hammerton, then from the Communications Team at the Council. Their team were amazing to work with. They identified and contacted all the partner stakeholders who would be participating in the film, including Hampshire an IoW Constabulary, Ambulance Service, St John’s Ambulance, University of Southampton Students’ Union, Solent University Students’ Union, SCC Junior Wardens, No Limits, Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Street Pastors, Licensing Team, CM Foundation, Artist Kev Munday, Synergy Security, GO! Southampton, Balfour Beatty’s CityWatch and Yellow Door.
Working via a shared cloud portal helped with efficiencies and clear communications, logging filming plans, interview details, times, dates and key roles for the 15 filming events we shot as part of the project.
Collaboration made easy
This project succeeded because of the end-to-end team work and effective collaboration with the project team at Southampton City Council, Chris, Lisa and Su. The detailed planning, problem solving, effective communication and keeping sight of the end goals and messaging all played their part in ensuring the project was delivered to time and budget
It was also a fantastic job the whole RCM team played a part in bringing the film to screen so it was an ideal project to allow every person’s contribution to shine.
Collaboration made easy
In terms of creative treatment, we designed a look and feel for the film to tie in with the film themes and mood – dark, slow movements, including as many people-at-work shots as possible alongside interview footage and contextual b-roll.
We created a storyboard and structure for the film chapters and how we would break down the story based on the project themes and contributors:
- Introduction
- Context setting
- Big issues overview
- Night-time economy services
- Violence against women and girls interventions
- Anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime responses
- Outcomes and legacy
- Summing up
Based on the above, detailed planning and flexing to accommodate the delivery team’s needs ensued.
Filming and editing ensured we delivered the original vision for the look and feel of the film, brought to life by the incredible stories and accounts of all those we interviewed and the atmospheric b-roll.
Deliverables
- 100 hours filming across the city centre and Millbrook
- Daytime and evening
- Indoors and outdoors
- In the sun and rain
- 20+ interviews
- 15+ organisations
- 15+ locations
- 170 hours editing
Outcomes
- One main 20-minute documentary
- Social films series
- Three themed films
- Suite of professionally edited images for each shoot
- Set of full interview transcripts
- RAW footage for future use.
What was so special about this project
We were entrusted to tell a very important documentary about a wide range of statutory and voluntary sector partners working together to keep Southampton public and businesses safe
We had the opportunity to flex our creative and organisational muscle
We enjoyed delivering a medium-term project over 6 months so the substantive nature of the project
We met some amazing people and were privileged to experience a fantastic collaborative working relationship with the Southampton City Council Officers
We produced a film that hit the mark and even brought a tear to the eye of our collaborators for its emotional resonance
We made it easy for them to work with us!