I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed working on cause-led briefs, so I was excited to join DTV Group – a fundraising agency creating direct response TV ads for charities across Europe, Asia and even Australia.

DTV’s ads only have one goal. To get the audience picking up their phones and donating before the ad’s even finished. Which was a massive step away from the big, bold, awareness-driven campaigns I was used to. The budgets and timelines were tighter than I’ve ever encountered, so conceptual creative often took a backseat, while quick, emotional, informative scriptwriting took the lead.

While I often had to swallow my creative-pride and let my big ideas slide, I developed skills in other facets. Without art directors, DTV writers work directly with in-house editors to produce the ads, so I’ve become adept at visualising my ideas, making footage selects, and overseeing edits by myself.  

Because of the low budget nature of the work, production occurred in-house. This meant that I was in charge of directing my own ads, and I even had the incredible opportunity to direct an international shoot in Kenya. This has strengthened my understanding of film craft exponentially. Anyway. Enough preamble.

Here’s some of my work that ran: