The brief
A few years ago, Cord commission a short film about its work with communities in Cambodia in south-east Asia. The film was beautifully shot and told a powerful story of how secure land rights make a tangible difference to the poorest in society.
Fast forward to 2020 and Cord needed to launch its response to COVID-19 with an appeal to supporters. With budget and the ability to gather new material limited, we were asked to repurpose the original film – which still accurately reflected the current work – and resolve a few challenges that later emerged with the original edit, including the lack of a voice track which impacted accessibility.
Our approach
We took the original film and performed a light re-cut, focussing mainly on the ‘explainer’ slides and adding a voice track for both the translation and the narrative.
We commissioned the translated voices from voiceover artists in south-east Asia, and recorded the narrative parts in-house in the UK. Coupled with a slightly shorted edit, the final film is more accessible and the faster pace serves the target audience well.
In addition to the main film, we produced two short-form versions in a square format to use on social media. These versions jump straight into the message and work well even if the sound is turned off and the screen size is small, such as an older smart-phone.
We’d especially like to thank the hugely talented David Cawley, the original film-maker, for his support in offering us the original footage to work with.
Originally Filmed and produced by: David Cawley
Additional editing and narration: Nick Wilmot
Voice dubbing: Châu Ngọc Trâm Anh, Ouk TepVibot
Additional footage: James Ricketson via Storyful, Taryn Elliott via Pexels, Cord, Phnom Penh Post