James' Place
INTRO
To mark the start of Mental Health Awareness Week, we covered the opening of James' Place's new centre in Birmingham, which offers free, life-saving therapy to men in suicidal crisis. Prince William visited to open the doors, and we followed him around the centre as he spoke with staff and partners. Alongside that, we sat down with James' Place's founder as well as Papyrus and Mindout, two other charities working in suicide prevention, all part of The National Suicide Prevention Network set up by The Royal Foundation. The interviews were cut into a video series and turned into Instagram carousels.
OUTCOME
Suicide prevention is about as heavy a subject as you can put in front of a camera, and it's exactly the kind of project we're built for. Putting people at ease is most of the job before you even start filming – knowing when to slow down, when to leave space, and when a question doesn't need answering on camera at all. That trauma-informed approach is what let the founder and partners speak as openly as they did, without ever feeling pushed. Our job was really just to get out of the way and let that come through.
