Where we live. Who we are. It’s about perspective….
When two aspiring TikTok influencers try to launch their careers by mocking their hometown with a viral video steeped in stereotypes, a whole community challenges them to look deeper. Together, they uncover the real Bridgwater, its vibrant community, surprising beauty, and heart, and find new purpose.
Commissioned by Bridgwater Town Deal Board, this short film was created with the people who live and work in Bridgwater.
The brief was simple: create a short film that celebrates and captures the spirit of the town. Involve as many people as possible in making it. Make it go viral.
For an organisation that has been based in Bridgwater for over 20 years, with a strong track record of working alongside the local community, this was not an unusual request. What made this project different was the opportunity not to produce a quasi-corporate promotional film. Instead, we were able to create something far more imaginative, playful, and authentic.
At a time when film and television drama are among the UK’s greatest creative exports—and when short films serve as a vital training ground for the next generation of creative talent—opportunities to fund original work are increasingly rare. For communities, rarer still. We are extremely grateful to Bridgwater Town Deal and Jeremy James for this chance to make something new.
The resulting film will premiere to an invited audience on January 21st with public screenings at Scott Cinemas Bridgwater from February 6th - 12th.
Phase One: Consultation
We began by bringing together creatives from Bridgwater and the surrounding area. It was a significant ask: to invite people to share their ideas, experience, and insight, knowing that they might not ultimately be part of the production itself. The depth of local talent is remarkable, but the reality was that there would only ever be one screenwriter, one director, one director of photography, and so on.
Together, we explored the brief and asked some fundamental questions: why do we live and work in Bridgwater? What do we love about the town? Who are the characters that shape daily life here? What stories might there be out there that we could bring to life on screen? And what are the challenges we face?
If the film was going to feel honest and authentic, that final question was not something we could afford to avoid.
To explore what stories might already be out there, we invited the community to contribute their personal journeys and ideas. We advertised public events, including a stand in Angel Place Shopping Centre. We asked questions: How did you come to live here? Have you experienced an eventful journey that brought you safely home? The responses were powerful. Personal. Themes were emerging. In particular, the overriding answer to the question “What keeps you here”: The people.
We reviewed who we had spoken to. What voices from our community were missing in our conversations to date? We set out to involve them creatively. Of the groups we approached Firecracker WI and Barnardo’s Youth Group in Hamp were keen to take part. We commissioned writers Karl Bevis and Helen Tompson to lead some workshops to tease out more stories, ideas and themes. After a number of sessions we invited writers back around the table and commissioned two to write a treatment in response. Of these, Helen Tompson was asked to develop her treatment into a full blown script.
The next key decision was to appoint a director. We were fortunate to have recently met film and theatre maker Archie Rowell, who was based in Crewkerne and to have seen his film ‘Ralph’, a short about suddenly losing someone you love. It demonstrated his ability to move audiences and create striking visuals with very little budget. On meeting with him informally we were also struck by how incredibly warm hearted and creatively generous he is. When our thoughts turned to whom might direct he was top of our list and we were delighted when he agreed to take on the project.
Phase Two - Pre-production
With a scriptwriter and a director in place we continued to refine the script. Whilst dialogue might change we had a good idea of how many locations we would be using and began to secure those. Filming a scene at St Matthews Fair was a key expectation of the script. The beauty of using big annual events is that it can bring a lot of “production value’ to your film - hiring in an entire fairground for a short film is only feasible if you’ve got the financial backing of say Netflix. However, it presents a number of challenges such as safety for the public, cast and crew, the timing of filming to avoid interrupting their set up or their business, and controlling elements for continuity purposes. We were really fortunate to have the support of Rob Semple at Bridgwater Town Council and the Showmans’ Guild of Great Britain and together explored options.
We now needed to secure our cast and extras and put a call out through social media, local press and Spotlight, an industry recognised casting platform. We included in our guidance for agents that we wanted to work with local talent and one of the characters was left completely open in terms of gender. Over 100 CVs and headshots were submitted and shortlisted for auditions in person, on zoom and by self-tape.
More info to follow…
