One Young World documentary filmed in São Paulo

Crews around the world

Six One Young World Ambassadors were chosen to feature in a documentary The Young Leaders – One Young World Stories, charting each one’s progress towards tackling these challenges. Commissioned by US arts network Ovation TV and produced by Blue Planet Films, the documentary involved film crews in five countries around the world, with Story Productions hired to film Tabata Amaral in São Paulo.

The Blue Planet team approached us with the project and we worked through all the location options with them to come up with a shooting schedule that would capture all the images they needed. We shot at four different locations in a day – including filming in a favela on the outskirts of the city where Amaral has a community project and an interview with Amaral at her home. We also filmed a football lesson at a school in a low-income suburb of the city and the distribution of food packages to hundreds of people.

Filming in São Paulo makes up the lion’s share of our shoots (as well in Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere in Brazil) but no two shoots are ever the same in a city as large and diverse as São Paulo. This shoot was an ambitious one, and capturing so many shots in one day called for an agile crew, organized and energetic production assistants, and a carefully planned schedule in order to get from one location to the next in time, bearing in mind that traffic and weather are unpredictable factors that can complicate the best laid plans in São Paulo. Our production assistants were responsible for the marathon job of getting signed image release forms from the hundreds of people captured on camera throughout the day.

On the technical side, our Brazil camera crew included a drone operator and a live streaming technician, as well as a Brazilian field producer and a DOP. During the interview with Amaral, we live streamed two camera feeds to the Blue Planet team in London, enabling them to not only follow the images in real time, but also direct the shoot remotely, and conduct the interview.

“Filming remotely in five countries has been challenging, but this really has been a team effort. It has been a joy to collaborate with wonderful filmmakers from so many countries” says documentary producer/director Bruce Robertson

It’s become the norm on most of our shoots in Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic to live stream camera and mic feeds to a remote client team, enabling them to follow the shoot and even direct it, communicating in real time throughout filming with our English-speaking camera crews (Read more about live streaming in Brazil). Blue Planet were delighted with the finished material, which they received via a high-speed FTP connection just hours after the shoot had finished.

The documentary launched in September 2021 at a UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) event at Soho House in New York, attended by some of the One Young World ambassadors. It was part of a 4-day event in the run-up to this year’s United Nation’s COP26 climate summit, gathering leaders to discuss global goals on issues such as biodiversity and gender equality.

A-list narration

One of the UK's most highly regarded actors Michael Sheen narrated the documentary. An activist himself, Sheen said about the documentary:

“The stories of these six young leaders absolutely floored me. To have come through such incredibly harrowing experiences and not only survive but to then become such positive forces for change is moving beyond words and hugely inspiring. It is such a privilege to be able to be a part of sharing their stories with the world.”

Story Productions is a full-service production company based in São Paulo, with English-speaking camera crews operating all over Brazil. Whether it’s for corporate, documentary or reality TV, we capture stunning images on every shoot.

Related links

• Filming in São Paulo
• Remote directing: EBS documentary
• Filming during Covid-19
• Safety protocols in Brazil
• Filming B-roll footage in São Paulo for Al Jazeera
• Variety promotes São Paulo as a filming destination