Phil Lind on Lottery Lifelines

Phil Lind has spent a substantial part of this year working on a creative collaboration with ITN and his new brand storytelling company Art and Science to promote the work of The National Lottery and the funding it provides to organisations in the UK beyond the point of purchasing a ticket.

You can find out more about the Play Makes it Possible campaign - which is currently rolling out alongside targeted programming on ITV1 with more broadcasts set for this weekend - here, and below, Lind tells us how the project came about, what his role was and how he constructed a plan and set of rules to ensure a smooth delivery.

Tell us about the brief for your latest Lottery campaign and how it came about?

The brief came about when Vizeum Storylab brought ITV and The National Lottery (TNL) into a three-month partnership to show ITV viewers some of the ways Lottery money is spent. It required creating a synergy between TNL and ITV. TNL were fans of the ITV idents that I creatively directed a few years back as part of the entire channel’s rebrand. 

The idents featured real people from across the UK in a variety of situations – over 100 by launch day – and the intention was to apply this thinking to TNL's films that would broadcast in ITV's commercial airtime and feature on a specific ITV microsite. TNL required 10 films and the intention was still to film real people and organisations across the country that have benefited from Lottery funding.

In addition, further funding statistics would be delivered to specific ITN regions to let viewers know how many more funded projects there have been in their area. Essentially this meant creating 11 versions of each of the 10 films, one for each of the 11 ITV broadcast regions. This regional targeting was a big part of the partnership deal.

And how were the personal cases chosen – did TNL present you with some of their best investments?

The lottery has funded over 450,000 projects and individuals to date and to try and choose 10 would have taken forever. Thankfully, the NLPU (National Lottery Promotions Unit) came to the rescue and said they could get us a shortlist of 50 to choose from.

It wasn't simply a question of picking favourites because the media plan was focussing on specific ITV programming genres and audiences to provide the greatest possible coverage and viewing figures. Two of the films had to appeal to youth audiences and then there were the sport, factual, entertainment audiences etc. to consider as well as finding a good national spread of projects.

We sent research teams out to the shortlisted 50 and they came back with video and audio footage to help us make informed decisions on those most suitable to the media schedule and more importantly ones that we believed would make really good stories for viewers.

Tell us about your new company and taking on the job outside of your usual role as a commercials director…

Art and Science came into being during the Unquiet Film Series for The Times and Sunday Times. With 14 films created for this series there was the requirement to not only source a variety of creative talents to make them but also to ensure the campaign felt cohesive, especially in maintaining high quality storytelling throughout.

Art and Science as a brand storytelling initiative allows for the creative direction of a project, the sourcing of those individuals or companies that will contribute to the project and where required the writing and direction of individual executions and this is something that does not really exist in the commercials environment. So whilst traditionally repped for commercials by Mad Cow - Art and Science allows me to exploit my creative direction experience too.

And can you talk about your strategy for the campaign?

For TNL campaign I was engaged as the CD to write the initial pitch and then establish a campaign strategy thereafter – the direction was in many ways a by-product of this process.

I had to present the campaign overview to the client for sign off and in so doing kind of prove that I could create a cohesive campaign despite the films being shot simultaneously by different directors.

Essentially I came up with five simple principles for everyone to follow (including myself):

1. The films are to be contributor lead including all v/o including packshots etc.  No professional v/o artists are to be used at all for the TVC's or online films.

2. The contributors were never to be filmed as 'talking heads'.  Interviews would be conducted, as they would be for radio.  This meant having to shoot establishing shots of the contributors in order to understand who is talking especially in the 90 and 60 second versions that feature multiple contributors.

3. All units to shoot on the Alexa Mini and use only Zeiss uncoated prime lenses.

4. A base frame rate of 33 and a third fps was to be utilised at all times unless there is a requirement for a higher frame rate to capture high-speed action successfully.

5. Grading of the films should include lower contrast and colour saturation levels.

Why do you think it makes sense for the creative and direction to come from one place?

All I can say is that so far it’s something I've been doing since 4Creative days and very much enjoy. When I look at creative directing and directing I think there is always a slight danger of who is creatively directing the creative director when he is directing and I would have to say that whilst it is a case of so far so good I do think it will not always be the case and I am incredibly aware that I need to review it on a project by project basis because I know there will be times that I will have to do one or the other to ensure both roles are adequately resourced.

What were the subjects like to direct for the various pieces? We’re assuming they’re not actors and actually experienced the good work of the organisations involved.

The contributors were an absolute pleasure to direct and work with. It was really humbling. TNL funding doesn't really pay individuals as much as it supplies funds for equipment, land, property and things of that nature. Many of the people we met give their time to these causes on a voluntary basis.

The Blood Bikers that I am shooting had some of their motorbikes paid for to carry blood between hospitals at night but give their own time for free and pay for all the petrol themselves.

The client has had a few wobbles over the v/o of the contributors, especially when delivering the funding information and tag lines but other than that I never cease to be amazed at how great the public are when there is something that they care passionately about. There are no actors whatsoever and everyone filmed is intimately involved with the organisation.

Finally, can you tell us about the wider media plan and when the films are being broadcast?

Each film was selected to cover at least two of ITV's broadcast genres. The three launch films were Music in Hospitals, Equata and KCK.

KCK was aimed predominantly at youth. Music in Hospitals at drama and entertainment and Equata at factual viewing. As directors we did think a lot about the genres that the films would be sitting next too. KCK's main contributor was the young girl rather than the dance teacher. For Equata we were looking for the impact the therapy has on the mother of Alex who has Cerebral Palsy and cannot speak for himself. For Music in Hospitals we wanted to appeal to a broad audience and the band leader felt like someone that would appeal to both an entertainment audience and a drama audience.

The more steers you can get as a director towards the people we are targeting the better I think it makes the creative work that bit harder rather than producing catch all appeal. Having the target genres has been really helpful all in all. It's something we should be doing more and more rigorously especially now that we can profile audiences more successfully than ever.

The campaign continues this weekend with the launch of The X Factor on ITV1. Stay tuned to shots for more from ITN's commercials department on the campaign.