The film
Just 12% of teachers in Sierra Leone were women, as Surround Vision recorded in the film’s brief, and that held down girls’ attendance at school and their confidence. Plan International’s Girls’ Education Challenge Programme trains young women as learning assistants in primary classrooms, and Plan wanted to use VR to show supporters the difference its work was making.
The film tells the story of Mamie, 22, who despite all the obstacles fought to become financially independent and one of very few female teachers in her community. In VR, viewers step into her life and into the issues girls there face every day, among them FGM, teenage pregnancy, discrimination and being refused an education.
How it was made
Surround Vision produced the film and Mary Matheson directed it: her first VR film, after eight years as a producer and director in Plan International’s global video unit. The crew spent about a week in Sierra Leone, with the 360 camera on a drone, a zip line and a cable-camera rig, including a shot through a busy school courtyard at lunchtime in 35-degree heat.
Ben Huss was the film’s 360 drone pilot.
How it was shown
Plan International UK released the film in 2016, in 360 on YouTube and in apps for Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR, and showed it to supporters at events. It ends with a call to join the Because I am a Girl campaign, with no request for money. In 2017 it was selected in competition in the Alternate Realities programme at Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Credits
- Commissioned by
- Plan International UK
- Produced by
- Surround Vision
- Director
- Mary Matheson
- Producer
- James Louis Hedley
- 360 drone pilot
- Ben Huss (Immersi)