A deep dive into our government video production for the Tree Council and Defra. A documentary film series and animated explainers for Trees Outside Woodland, the HM Government-funded programme exploring new ways to plant more trees outside the UK's woodlands: on farms, in parks, in cities, in school grounds and on community plots.
A long-form documentary film for the Tree Council and Defra, exploring how the UK plants and establishes more trees on farms. Filmed across a pilot project testing farmer appetite for new tree-planting at scale and the methods that make young trees stick. Part of the HM Government-funded Trees Outside Woodland programme, delivered with Natural England and partner local councils across Chichester, Cornwall, Kent, Norfolk and Shropshire.
An animated explainer for the Tree Council and Defra, walking landowners through the routes to HM Government-backed support for planting more trees outside woodland. Built to increase the uptake of subsidised tree schemes among the farmers, councils and community groups who can actually use them, and to remove the friction of working out which scheme fits which landowner.
Trees Outside Woodland are the trees you come across most often: trees in parks, in the countryside, in carparks, in school grounds and the ones that enhance our food on farms. The £4.8m, five-year Trees Outside Woodland programme is funded by HM Government and delivered in partnership by the Tree Council, Natural England and Defra with five local councils: Chichester District, Cornwall, Kent County, Norfolk County and Shropshire. Its aim is to develop innovative, sustainable new ways to increase that tree cover and address both the climate and ecological emergencies. Indigo were commissioned to tell the story on film.
We made a series of documentary films showcasing pilot projects across the country, with astonishing results: from testing farmer uptake and appetite for more trees on farms, to the first comprehensive survey of how the UK's community tree nurseries actually work, to the Miyawaki method for creating dense, fast-growing new forests in urban settings. A fascinating, if challenging project for team Indigo. We were allowed to really flex our story-telling muscles, interweaving different narratives from many contributors into a cohesive, compelling, long-form documentary that holds an audience's attention all the way through.
The films are just part of the story. We worked with the Tree Council to create a series of handbooks, animated guides and social media content, all aimed at inspiring others to start their own similar schemes. The full set of content sits on a newly developed website, also designed by team Indigo. The films were shown at the Urban Tree Festival and used by Kent County Council, the Tree Council and Defra to raise awareness of how to plant more healthy, resilient trees as the partners work toward HM Government's net zero ambitions. They were also screened for the then-Prince Charles, now King, who sponsored the programme. He gave the films glowing praise, which is not a sentence we expected to write.
