Powerful online video from a refugee NGO using ingenious film techniques

Film can be at its best when switching the lightbulb on above viewers’ heads, perhaps making them think a little differently about a controversial topic. That’s exactly what this online video does, drawing on deceptively simple but genuinely ingenious filmmaking methods. The argument of the film’s sponsor, Refugee Action, is for refugee access to English teaching services. While its use of celebrity endorsement (the eloquent final words of actor Juliet Stevenson) is a tried-and-true technique since time immemorial, what precedes it is strikingly original.

The main body of the film consists of refugees – as played by actors – filmed against a blank background and speaking to camera a script drawing on a complex word-scrambling system, which pulls us from their initial challenging struggles with the English language through increasing fluency to their full, rich participation in British society.

It’s a brilliant example of a how a clever filmmaking concept, executed with confident simplicity, can in just two minutes create a sort of accelerated learning process for viewers that’s both informative and emotionally affecting. The producers responsible for that concept and execution are creative video agency Brickwall whose online video work has run the gamut of clients from Greenpeace to Experian to the NSPCC and from BBC Bitesize to multiple parts of the NHS.

A short film commissioned by Refugee Action as part of their campain to get the British public to sign a petition asking the government to dedicate more funds for English classes for refugees and make more available. The film puts the audience in the shoes of a refugee at the very beginning, having actors speak incoherently, but with a clear sense of sadness or urgency about their story. Brickwall used the testimonials of refugees to craft the narrative and slowly had the actors’ English skills improve throughout. The film resulted in petition entries rising over 250%.