A husband and wife with a 50-year love story, navigating a diagnosis of dementia and the knowledge that life is forever changed.
A man with a passion for books, music and people, isolated because of a broken toilet and a cold home.
A 99-year old war veteran writing a romance novel, whose life got a bit lonely when he broke his leg and couldn’t go out.
These are the people we met in our latest collaboration with Age UK Oxfordshire. People we’ve spoken about pretty much every week since we met them. They were generous with their time. Honest with their words. And an absolute joy to film.
The goal of the project was to create three short films that celebrate the impact of Age UK Oxfordshire’s work. We wanted to highlight the unique stories and characters of the people featured, their relationships with their Age UK Oxfordshire Link Workers, and the real changes they were (and are) experiencing – big or small. No spin. No misrepresentation. Just real people and real stories.
Watch the videos and let us know if you think we achieved our goals:
✨ Stephen’s Story is nominated for a Smiley Charity Film Award! Please vote to help get it on the shortlist so more people hear about the work of Age UK Oxfordshire: vote now.✨
There was so much to love about this project.
- The storytellers themselves: You’d struggle to find a better lineup of people to interview.
- The range of stories: With more than 250 years of life between our four main contributors, there were a LOT of stories to be shared. As much as we loved the filming itself, I also really enjoyed having an hour before each of the shoots to get to know the storytellers while Jake lugged all the filming gear in and set it up (he’s a hero, but he had help, don’t worry). It was a privilege to hear about the way Janice and Phil have gradually turned their garden into a paradise of flowers, fruits and vegetables. To see Stephen light up as he spoke about music. To hear Ches’ stories of going to dances after the Second World War. It’s rare to be invited into a stranger’s home and have the opportunity to ask them about their life. And we don’t take it for granted.
- The creative freedom: Our brief was to create three short videos to launch Age UK Oxfordshire’s new strategy and demonstrate the impact of their work. They wanted the tone to be positive and uplifting – but there was so much flexibility. We were given the freedom to shoot and edit the videos in the way we thought was most impactful. The Age UK Oxfordshire team were really helpful and supportive, but they also trusted us to do our job, which is always nice.
- The ethical approach: We’re committed to getting informed consent from our storytellers, letting them see the content that will be included in the final cut before we edit it, and making sure they’re fully on board with the process. So it is always music to our ears when our clients are fully sold on that too.
- The final films: It feels awkward to big ourselves up too much, but we’re actually really proud of the final videos. A key priority for us was making sure that all of the storytellers would be happy and comfortable with the way they were presented in the films. For example, Janice is highly intelligent (first class degree and former school Head of Science), a loving wife, a keen gardner, and a wonderful human. We wanted people to see that, and so we chose not to lead with her diagnosis of dementia or include any clips where she lost her train of thought. Similarly, Stephen is so personable and joyful. He was fabulous when we wanted to film b-roll, and really got into his role as film star for the day. Chatting with him before the shoot, it was clear he’s got so many skills and passions, and is committed to helping in his community, too. For the story to make sense, we needed to share the financial struggles he’d been facing, but we didn’t want to lead with that. Instead, we start and end in a positive place – which feels like Stephen.
- Seeing the videos on the big screen: We were invited to attend (and photograph) Age UK Oxfordshire’s strategy launch event and it was amazing to see the videos on a big screen for the first time. We rarely get to watch our videos being premiered in the real world, so seeing people’s reactions as the videos played, and hearing their comments afterwards was genuinely lovely.
There were some pretty big challenges as well. Like how to navigate informed consent when the person you’re interviewing has dementia. Or how to visually show the economic challenges someone is facing, without painting them (inaccurately) as powerless. Or how to interview someone with a hearing impairment when you can’t sit right next to them without being in the shot. At every shoot, we were confronted with a complication and had to adapt pretty quickly to pull everything together – but we think we smashed it.
Since the films were launched in the autumn, we’ve had really positive feedback. Some of the comments from attendees at Age UK Oxfordshire’s strategy launch include:
“... the presentations/videos were brilliant – interesting, motivating, moving, clear and just right!”
“Very powerful films”
“Thank you for sharing such inspiring stories.”
“The videos were very moving.”
Emma Duckett, Marketing and Communications Manager at Age UK Oxfordshire and the fabulous person who commissioned us for and collaborated with us on this project said:
“[Stone Barrell] were professional, creative and friendly, making the whole process easy. Sarah, Jake and their team worked extremely calmly and with great sensitivity and care toward everyone featured in the videos which was so important to us. They also provided us with some wonderful photographs.
It can be hard to know where to start when producing video stories and working with storytellers, but Sarah and Jake guided us so well. They really understood our vision and brought it to life beautifully.
The videos have had a great impact - engaging our audience and helping us share our message in a clear, compelling way. We couldn’t be happier with the results and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for high-quality video production.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
We absolutely LOVED working on this project and learned so much from Janice, Phil, Stephen and Ches, as well as from the Age UK Oxfordshire workers supporting them – the brilliant Melissa, Diane and Charlie. Thank you for having us! Thanks too goes to the incredible team at Fresh Cut Video, our neighbours in East Oxford, who not only loaned us amazing lighting and filming gear free of charge, but also loaned us one of their talented team for each of the shoots, so we could cover all the angles and really elevate the videos. What a crew. We’re very grateful.
