The Start of Something Extraordinary
We worked with St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls to develop a new creative campaign for their Junior School: The Start of Something Extraordinary.
The brief was to find a more imaginative way to communicate what happens in the early years of a child’s education. Rather than another school film filled with smiling faces, classrooms and children looking happily into camera, we wanted to create something that felt more like a short film or storybook.
The result was a trilogy of cinematic reels following one young girl as she begins to discover the world around her.
Concept & Ideation
The idea began with a simple image, a desk under a tree in their nature playground,surrounded by the things that make up her world: curious objects like books, drawings, measuring tape, binoculars, feathers, jars and all the little collections that turn an ordinary afternoon into imaginative learning.
From there, we developed the idea of education as the beginning of a much bigger story.
The three films became small chapters in that story, exploring different moments of childhood: learning, courage, finding your voice, friendship and the confidence to step into the unknown.
The films were deliberately designed to feel less like traditional education advertising and more like beautifully observed moments from a coming-of-age story.
Working within Parametres
One of the more interesting creative challenges was that the films needed to be produced without showing fully identifiable faces, in line with St Hilda’s approach to public social media content.
Rather than treating this as a limitation, we used it to shape the visual language of the films.
We focused on hands, movement, objects, silhouettes, reflections, feet, gestures and beautifully composed environments, allowing the story to be told through what the girls were doing rather than relying on conventional portraiture.
Whether or not all viewers will notice, children’s faces are all partially blurred or obscured, profiled from the side or slightly off camera.
The Visual Style
We wanted the films to have the feeling of a premium short film, with a slightly storybook quality rather than a conventional school-commercial aesthetic.
We used a probe lens to get right up close to the objects, and have a whimsical yet slightly quirky feeling.
The narration was also important and former St Hilda’s Principal Joy Shepherd provided the voice of the story, bringing a warmth and gravitas that gave the films the feeling of someone looking back on childhood with a little more wisdom.
The Trilogy
The campaign was produced as three connected reels, each able to stand alone while contributing to the larger story.
A photography shoot accompanied the filming component, and billboards along the Western suburbs are promoting the campaign at time of publishing.