Responses by Daniel Wegrzyn, business director, BrandOpus.

Background: This short film titled “Thread of Hope” was created to drive awareness and fame for the charity MADE51, an initiative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Bringing refugee-made products to the international market, MADE51 does amazing work but has struggled with awareness on a large scale. Our narrative for the short film set out to change the way refugees and social enterprise collectively are viewed. That meant creating a piece that moved the narrative of refugees from a statistic and a group we pity to individuals with dignity and desire, showing the amazing work MADE51 does at a human level.

We began our journey to create the film all the way back in October 2022. Without big budgets to play with, we needed to put a lot of effort and time into selling our ambition to exciting partners and high-profile talent to bring the film to life. With a compelling concept and narrative along with many hours of work, we managed to onboard amazing talent who could see the potential to realize our vision.

Favorite details: MADE51 is all about creating a sense of humanity and positivity around the refugee experience, providing dignified work and helping refugees to participate in the world economy. The animation style we’ve used attempts to replicate that sense of humanity and positivity. By utilizing photographic collage effects, we baked humanity into the animation adding a level of dimensionality and emotion, from pain and sadness to hope and expectation. We feel it so much more this way helping us to understand, empathize and ultimately value the work MADE51 does.

Visual influences: We were keen to reflect the craftsmanship and humanity of the MADE51 artisans with the overall look and feel, which quickly led us to the idea of layering and collage—much like that of a woven basket or rug from the artisans. From here, we identified Troy Browne as a great partner for the project. Together, we developed a mixed-media approach, layering photography, illustration and texture together to create a handcrafted, visually engaging world that felt distinctive to other charity campaign films.

Specific project demands: It was very important to us to gain authentic imagery and footage of a real refugee camp. Time was needed to gain the necessary security and access before shooting in this environment.

brandopus.com
troybrowne.com
hocuspocus.studio
pitchandsync.com
road2films.com