Young Voices for Nature

We were commissioned in spring 2023 to run Young Voices for Nature, which is set up by WWF, the RSPB and the National Trust, as part of their Save Our Wild Isles initiative. The project's been run, and the collective film produced, by World Pencil, working with our core team and a network of contributors and associates. And the project has been steered and led throughout by young people, particularly the project's Youth Steering Group. The project's collective film, Our Beautiful Wild - made by young people for young people - is now live (see above). Our Beautiful Wild is the collective story of over 200 young people, passionate and committed to supporting the UK's remarkable nature and wildlife.

The story of Young Voices for Nature

The project started off by recruiting 240 young people from across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to join, through a range of partner relationships and social media outreach.

Workshops for change design, storytelling and filmmaking

We ran a series of six in-person workshops in locations across the UK (Birmingham, Newport, Manchester, London, Perth & Belfast), and a corresponding series of online workshops. The workshops supported young people with strategic change design, storytelling and filmmaking. And in each workshop location teams of young made their own films on issues related to nature and wildlife -- all in a day.

Online Q&As with nature influencers and filmmaking resources

Over August, we put on a series of online talks and Q&As from influencers across the UK nature sphere - from sustainable development gurus like Jonathon Porritt and Tim Smit, to young nature presenters, wildlife and impact filmmakers like Dan O'Neill and Annie Moir.

We've also produced a series of film-based resources, and a print resource pack, to help young people with impactful nature stories in film.

Producing the collective film: Our Beautiful Wild

Then in September we worked on shaping a single narrative and film in which hundreds of young people could tell their stories - the stories of how they got into nature, what they're doing to help it, the impacts they get from nature, and how powerful young people's voices are collectively. We were determined to make the film production process - from start to finish - as open and collaborative as possible, and led throughout by young people. 60 young people were involved in the film production process over all, which took place mainly through multiple series of online workshops.

Storyboarding: First, we ran a series of online storyboarding workshops with 30 young people, where we worked on pulling together all of the 1,000 ideas and perspectives shared from across the project so far, and helped them bring these into one narrative. This is where some of the main themes in the film emerged. These included the central theme about connection with nature - nature isn't 'other' from us - we are nature. Another theme was the film being by young people for young people: designed to mobilise more young people to engage in nature. The storyboarders also wanted to make it clear that helping nature doesn't have to be a big thing: just going for a walk can help, because it builds your connection with nature, or it can become your career - and everything else in between. These storyboarding workshops also came up with the idea of having a spoken word verse script to carry the narrative and pull it together.

Collective Co-design: Then, through an online Collective Co-design platform, we opened the storyboard out to all the project participants, giving them the opportunity to feed in ideas for the spoken word script, and ideas for the visual storyboard - footage they could shoot that would bring the story to life.

Spoken word verse: In another set of online workshops, 14 young people worked on crafting the spoken word verse for the film, inspired by spoken word performance poet Toby Thompson.

Filming and verse performance: With the script and storyboard finalised, we asked young people on the project to get filming - filming footage to tell the stories in the film, and footage of the young people performing the spoken word verse. We had over 2,000 film clips in total, featuring nature and wildlife from across the UK, most of it filmed on young people's smartphones. And the film features 36 young people performing the verse.

Film editing: Once the clips had been assembled according to the co-designed storyboard, 22 young people took part in online editing sessions, where they reviewed, critiqued and developed the film edit, up into its final form.

Music: And then 17 young people contributed to making the film's soundtrack. Again, working collaboratively through online workshops, young people worked through the draft film, discussed ideas for what each scene's music should sound like and contributed their musical ideas for the musical fabric. Then they critiqued and developed a series of soundtrack drafts, that ultimately became the film's music.

Final review: Finally, through a set of workshops and online screenings, young people reviewed the draft and final film, making it what it is today.

We hope you enjoy the film, and that you share it. And we hope it will encourage more young people to get involved in supporting nature, and telling their stories.

Working with all the young people on the project has been fantastic, and an honour. Their creativity, passion and commitment has been inspirational.