#35 UEA, UK - Words (2019)

We've seen plenty of university films focusing on science, engineering and technology. But have there been enough that give a platform to the arts, humanities and social sciences? Back in 2018, University of East Anglia began releasing a memorable collection of films determined to include every facet of its outstanding output. Its #ThinkingWithoutBorders series was designed to showcase the impact of every faculty and every subject area, most notably where disciplines were overlapping and integrating - science meets health, art meets engineering, and so on. Thinking without borders, right?

The 2019 Words film is a great example of how it all worked. The 60 seconds trailer-style promotion featured about 20 compelling stories all in some way connected to words. We had Nobel Prize winners, rap battles, fake news, safeguarding, lip-reading, climate change records and conuterterrorism. And much more. All presented in a way to hook in the audience emotionally. And every story mentioned had supporting social stories with 5 of them featuring in follow-up longer form web story content. A video-player even highlighted the 5 stories as you watched, enabling you to click straight through to explore further.

It's fair to say, the University now had a stand-out platform for its creative writers, historians and media experts to mix with its climate scientists, chemists and engineers. The work was recognised with a Gold for Best Brand & Reputation campaign at the UK's flagship Heist Awards.

If the Words example whets the appetite then you should try the whole series and start by jumping into Water - the very first release.

The 5 films and 5 minutes of content contain about 100 stories from across the University. The team work to achieve this at UEA was incredible and the University throughly deserves its second entry into the #RetroIndex hall of fame.

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