Centrepoint Doors Campaign
I’ve been working with the London based youth homelessness charity Centrepoint for several years now. Every year towards the end of August their marketing team plan the annual Christmas fundraising campaign and I’m proud to say that every year I’m asked back to shoot the stills. This year, for the first time their Christmas campaign extended to a TV commercial so I was shooting alongside the film production crew from London based TV production company DTV. The theme for the campaign was “Doors”, the idea being that young people are experiencing issues surrounding homelessness as the result of doors being closed on them with Centrepoint being the organisation that helps them to open doors both literally and metaphorically.
Amrina and Georgie, the lovely Centrepoint clients!
Although it doesn’t happen very often, I have worked alongside film crews in the past and while video and stills are very different disciplines, there is, perhaps unsurprisingly quite a large overlap.
Video however does require a lot more production and crew than stills and one benefit to working alongside the video crew was that I was able to use their lighting setups. Where I would normally bring my own studio strobe lights, I was able to make use of the continuous lighting rigs used by the video crew which saved a lot of time and aggravation, not to mention not having to transport all of my own heavy equipment! The team from DTV were very accommodating and after every video scene was complete I was able to get the shots I needed without any changes to the scene or the lighting.
DTV crew setting up a shot
The shoot took place over two days and tells the individual stories of three young people, all of whom had experienced street homelessness before finding help with Centrepoint.
Day one took place in a Centrepoint location in West London where the indoor scenes depicting the safety of the accommodation were shot. The second day was an overnight shoot in locations surrounding the film production company’s office in North London. In order to capture the fear and isolation that accompanies youth homelessness at night, the overnight shoot was mostly done between 1am - 5am, a long and tiring shoot, but made enjoyable by coffee and good humour!
Making set adjustments
Using a grey card for colour accuracy
Filming on the streets at 1am
The TV advert is scheduled to be aired in November and accompanying stills will be used mainly in printed material like inserts and leaflets. To find out more about the work that Centrepoint does and how you can support them, visit Centrepoint where you can also see more of the work I’ve shot for them over the years.
