WWF, RSPB & National Trust | Save Our Wild Isles
Series producer, director, and production manager
The campaign
Save our Wild Isles is a 3-charity partnership campaign between three of the UK’s leading nature charities, WWF-UK, the RSPB and the National Trust.
The campaign launched in March 2023 alongside the BBC/Silverback Films five-part natural history series ‘Wild Isles’. The TV series, presented by Sir David Attenborough, was co-produced with The Open University, the RSPB and WWF and filmed over three years to reveal a previously unseen wild side of the British Isles. Save our Wild Isles used the TV series as a launchpad into a major nationwide campaign around UK nature.
The challenge
Invited to play a key role in the Save our Wild Isles communications team, I was the lead producer, director and production manager. This role had three key elements:
to work with leading production company Silverback Films in order to oversee the editorial selection and technical acquisition of over 100 hours of broadcast footage ‘OUTs’ for WWF-UK and the RSPB (as co-producers of the BBC/Silverback Films five-part natural history series ‘Wild Isles’.)
to make use of that footage, in order to educate and inspire audiences as part of the ground-breaking partnership which saw WWF-UK and the RSPB partnering with the National Trust to launch ‘Save our Wild Isles’ alongside the TV series, Wild Isles, in order to raise awareness about the state of UK nature.
to research, develop and produce a series of films featuring individuals and communities across the UK acting to protect and restore nature.
A project of this scale, with the number of partners involved, was complex and demanded that I manage and negotiate with a large number of stakeholders, including senior leaders across the charities and at Silverback. I ran the production unit which included editors, producers, a research coordinator, DOPs, illustrators, motion editors and post production experts in order to deliver a large volume of quality outputs to an ambitious production schedule and budget.
“Cat is a pleasure to work with. As well as navigating her way around 3 charities wishes to create content for their ‘Save Our Wild Isles’ advocacy campaign, she also had to work closely with us as the Wild Isles production team and our priorities and schedules. Cat based in our offices during a very busy period as we filmed and delivered to multiple partners across the different strands of Wild Isles, dealing with complex footage sharing needs.
It would have been impossible without Cat’s patience, impressive organisation of her requirements and managing the charities needs with us. She was always calm, collaborative and her requests were thought out, well organised and clear. She quickly grasped any complications and made everything run as smoothly as possible for all parties with very tight deadlines. It was a tricky role which she handled brilliantly.”
Rebecca Coombs – Production Manager Wild Isles and Saving our Wild Isles, Silverback Films
The creative
Working within a content unit comprised of members of the 3 charities, I developed ideas and formats to utilise the incredible broadcast quality footage we had access to, as well as produced shoots in order to create a range of video products to support the campaign, including:
the launch film,
GIFs for reactive and proactive use on social media
digestible explainer films on key species and habitats in crisis
paid ads driving actions
thematic pieces on farming, oceans, and the role of business
inspiring stories of people taking action for nature
As well as managing a team to deliver these assets I also scripted, directed, edit-produced, filmed and edited across the project.
“I worked with Cat supporting her to build a remote team of creatives working with large amounts of data. Working with Cat was a joy, she excels at leading team morale and creates an atmosphere of belief that no technical challenge is insurmountable.
Cat has a strong technical understanding of creative workflows, video formats and edit suite design, enabling her to lead individuals with differing backgrounds, working environments and post-production technology in supporting them through any challenge and to empower them to be responsible for processes and workflows so they can operate and deliver as one team.
She is adept at pitching and framing conversations around technology to the different audiences, enabling creatives and managers to understand concepts as well as the subsequent impact on team working practices and delivery needs. In this regard, Cat’s ability and knowledge goes well beyond many other directors or producers I’ve worked with and should put her at the very top of any hiring list.”
Justin Coleman, Creative Assets Manager, RSPB
“The Save Our Wild Isles campaign was a very significant project for all three charities, and we knew from the start that the content we created had to deliver immediate impact with an audience who had been ‘warmed up’ by the hugely popular BBC Wild Isles series.
Cat was able to bring creativity, collaboration, pragmatism, pace and rigour to the content creation process and her input was invaluable throughout the campaign. She brought audience-focused ideas to the table for us to discuss and she was always open to listen to ideas that the three charity reps put forward. Together we forged a really trusting, open and effective project team and Cat was the beating heart of this.
Cat truly understood what we needed to deliver and was laser-focused in bringing it to life. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her and I’m very proud of the films we all made together. ”
Laura Appleby, Head of Content, National Trust
The results
I successfully oversaw the delivery of over 100 products which were used across email, website, social media, and paid to reach audiences at the various stages of the campaign. The assets received high engagement across all channels with the paid pieces in particular performing well to drive a range of campaign actions, including being the biggest driver of traffic to the campaign website.
After a year, the campaign has driven over 10 million people to engage online and has reached 1.58 billion people through media. In addition the campaign has been recognised as best integrated campaign for social purpose in the Drum Awards, and as Best Innovation at the Charity Communications Inspiring Communicator Awards.