Overview

Director: Ádám Miklósi, Arrabona Studios

These videos were parts of a campaign to stop the EU Council from overturning the Nature Restoration Law in the European Union, a law that aims to reverse biodiversity loss in European habitats.

The videos were filmed during press trips to ‘Auenreservat Marchegg’ and ‘Donauauen’ national parks in Austria, the ‘Tivedens nationalpark’ in Sweden, and in Brussels in front of the EU Council. They were shown in internal campaign events and some of them were shared on Social Media and YouTube.

Auenreservat Marchegg and Donauauen

The Austrian national park Auenreservat Marchegg is using grazing in its restoration efforts. They re-introduced wild horses into the area who are reversing the declining biodiversity. This is showing a way of dealing with biodiversity loss and restoring nature.

In the Donau-Auen National Park river restoration is taking place that restored previously cut-off side branches of the Danube.

Full video

Tivedens nationalpark

In the Tivedens nationalpark, Sweden, experts talk about the alternatives to clearcutting / clearfelling that they use in the forests of Tiveden.

Clearcutting is the dominant practice in forestry in the EU and it is the most damaging forest biodiversity. Sweden is especially guilty of doing very little to conserve old forests and habitats.

The video highlights the efficiency of alternative practices and also about using forests for tourism to provide for communities that leaves forests intact.

Run4Destruction

A short parody video in front of the EU Council that satirizes MEPs who are voting against the EU Nature Restoration Law.

Process

I was working with combination of proxies and original media through the project. I adapted the organizational structure of the director, as he requested to have the project file at the end of the editing process.

First, I initial selections from the interviews and filtered out stronger story beats for the director. The two of us worked closely to compress the over 2 hour long interviews into a 5 minute long video to create an interesting narrative and hit all the talking points of WWF.

I added cinematic B-roll that was captured on site and I edited the audio stems provided by the director to create a cinematic bed.

Given that the videos would be watched in full during the campaigning for the Restoration Law, I had the liberty to follow a more traditional documentary format instead of the modern social media format that relies on hooks and creating tension for audience retention.

My goal was to capture the arguments for preserving biodiversity as well as the beauty of nature.

The final part of the project consisted of polishing hte interviews and the cuts and then handing over the project for coloring.

Results

On June 17, 2024, the Nature Restoration Law was adapted by the EU Environmental Council and it became a law.

The videos were vital parts of the internal campaign ran by the WWF.