Fifteen separate shoot venues across the city. Two days of filming. Dozens of participants. The Mayor of Wolverhampton. A sprinkling of ambassadors, one of which, Mark Rhodes, played the leading role.
With over a year’s hard work going into producing the most extensive strategy in Wolves Foundation’s near 20-year history, it needed a powerful launch video to go with it.
A production crew accompanied Mark on a two-day trip across the city, delivering a script to encapsulate the Foundation’s new strategy whilst meeting a host of local people along the way.
“Work on producing a new five-year strategy to take the Foundation through to 2030 has been going on behind the scenes for over a year, with the most extensive consultation process in our history delivered by Remedy, a company who are specialists in this area,” says Foundation manager Tom Warren.
“The final document, which is a really extensive look at our plans for the next five years, was officially launched at Molineux on Friday, in front of a host of club representatives, our local MP Warinder Juss, the Mayor of Wolverhampton and many other local dignitaries.
“As part of that launch, we really wanted to accompany the strategy document with an eye-catching video, which not only provided a taster of our aims and objectives, but also featured some of our projects and participants who have played such a key part in the overall process.
“Ambassador Mark Rhodes kindly agreed to front the video, embarking on a whistle-stop two-day journey across the city.
“From being punched by boxer Ben Whittaker, to helping out a milkman, from donning the Mayor’s robes to going to bingo with Suzi Perry, there was certainly never a dull moment!
“The result has been a really fun and entertaining final video, but, most importantly, containing many different and serious messages about our plans to work with partners to tackle challenges in the city, and create opportunities and change lives.
“Hopefully it will help raise awareness of the range of our projects we deliver, and our ambitions to continue to have a positive influence on Wolverhampton and further afield.
“We would like to thank Mark for being such a great sport in fronting up the video, and all the other ambassadors and participants who played a part.”
The video, shown for the first time at Friday’s official launch of the Foundation’s new strategy, can also be viewed by clicking here.
Alongside the video, a powerful set of imagery was produced following a studio session with Jaymo Studios, capturing a host of participants from across many different subject areas.
From three-year-old Eva, who attends Healthy Goals, to 87-year-old Sylvia, a regular at Wolves Elders, 15 participants spanning a variety of ages and Foundation projects faced the camera to help launch the strategy.
They comprised: Eva (aged 3) Healthy Goals; Rory (5) Healthy Goals; Grace (9) Wolf Wise; Harry (10) Wolves Disability; Beau (14) Premier League Inspires; Holly (17) Football & Education College Academy; Maxwell (17) Football & Education Sixth Form Academy; Kam Kam (18) Premier League Kicks; Aleesha (19) Kick Off; Jamie (32) Head 4 Health; Bal (32) Kick Off; Daniel (34) Active Through Football; Darren (44) Wolves Disability; Clare (51) Head 4 Health; Sylvia (87) Wolves Elders.
Perhaps the last word should go to five-year-old Rory, who not only posed for a picture, but was also part of the filming when the crew took Mark to Healthy Goals.
“Well, that blew my socks off!” he said.
The Foundation would like to particularly thank the following for their help with the video: Mark Rhodes, Suzi Perry, Amber Sandhu, S-X, Ben Whittaker, Tony Wilson, the Mayor of Wolverhampton Councillor Craig Collingswood, Simon and Martin from Milk & More, Police Sergeant Marc Buller, Ranjit Singh and all at the Guru Nanak Satsang Gurdwara.
A huge thank you also to comedian Tom Parry for his help with the script.
