OU/BBC Creative Climate Shorts 1-5

As part of the Open University Creative Climate project the OU and BBC have worked to make space for some fresh approaches to environmental issues. Most environment communications are as dull as the issues are important. Leading creative talent from the UK’s top film schools has responded with a mix of drama, animation and factual films.

Twenty were shortlisted from over eighty submissions and pitched to an expert panel chaired by Lord Puttnam, from which ten were finally commissioned.

We offered some advice on craft and the students had access to expert advice on the environmental issues they were working with, although both editorially and in film making terms these are very much their own work. The films include plenty of sparky new ideas and tones.

There are sparkling gems of environmental communication amongst these ten films, yet they were made to a tight deadline on tiny budgets. They show what can be done when new talent is invited in to look at a problem. All of the films touch on themes being addressed for-real by people, but the whole package taken together serves to underline the fact that human beings almost certainly have the wit to get out of some of the fixes that they find themselves in.

Dr. John Smith, The Open University.

Click here for more information about the project from the Open University website.

See below for the first five shorts and click here for the remaining five.