"The Taking Part"
Produced by W Communications for the Museum of London, and commissioned in support of football’s European Championships, Eleven is a touching brand film that thoughtfully transcends the sum of its sport-centric parts. A run-time of nearly 25 minutes seems excessive for any form of digital marketing, especially when considered against the myriad ‘Brand-Film-How-To’ op-eds circulating the veins of the internet. Each article presents a sure-fire formula for getting in, delivering audiences the message, then getting out clean. Assurances are made of the perfect video length for maximum engagement.
But as we press play on Eleven, we remember that there is no such number and that all those bloated and unfulfilling promises will happily fade away. We’re captured by the simple story of 11 Londoners whose lives orbit the game of football in some form, for better or sometimes unintentionally forever. Yes, ensuring your video or campaign both warrants its time is important. After all, we at Moving Image are data lovers so we know a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t in that regard. But this piece illustrates how being timely can be just as important.
Spotlighting the community building aspect of a simple game played across a complex city, MOL’s award-winning piece perhaps resounds so deeply because often it seems that life’s default setting can be one of exclusion, misunderstanding, or forgetting. Social activities like sport are similarly often a potent antidote to that.
The multicultural, busy, and certainly cosmopolitan London is a great choice of pitch to kick around this conversation ball, as we meander between lives stacked on top of each other for nearly 100 years. The throughline? The gravity of the most popular sport in the world. But before long we understand that the narrative here isn’t about the final result or opposing sides. It’s about how we interact with each other, how we occupy our spaces as well as our time, and how we’re only as good as the player next to us.
