Hi everyone! I’m Raph and I’m a member of the Stand for Nature Cardiff forum. When I first joined this group last September, the idea of the Save Our Taff campaign had surfaced and the logo had already been freshly designed by our members. Early in the creation of this project, we all envisioned making a campaign video to raise awareness of river pollution and the current situation our Taff is in. Hoping this video would expose a powerful message reaching a wide audience, we decided to spend several months working on its content.

We met up for several workshops to brainstorm ideas and get inspiration from other campaign videos. Our Digital fundraising & communications Officer, Grace, ran a Media & Campaign video workshop, talking us through the process of the creation of a professional campaign video. From there, we started building a storyboard to gather our ideas of different scenes that we wanted to shoot and also potential filming spots along the Taff in Cardiff.

We then braved the rain and the wind to set out into Cardiff to locate filming spots and plan filming days. We’ve already had a first day of filming, starting at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve and following the stretch of the Taff until Bute Park. We were able to capture on video many of the wildlife currently existing in Cardiff, from mallards to herons to great crested grebes, but we also witnessed the plastic pollution within our river and the numerous sewage outflows.

We then met up to write the script, which will make up the voice over narration flowing through the video, forming the main thread and storyline. We will soon do another day of shooting to film some action shots of what we will carry out with this campaign, such as water sampling to assess water quality and litter picks. We will then interview some members of the public asking their views about river pollution in the Taff, as well as talking to some experts in the field.

Overall, this project is a result of a teamwork effort, leading to creative and innovative decisions. It has taught us many transferable skills along the way and reinforced our connections with our community and local groups. We also learned how our individual ideas and voices can be amplified by working together on a project like this.

We hope that our main message emerges from the campaign video, highlighting the environmental issue of river pollution in our Taff. We know how disastrous the state of our rivers is in, from pesticides to plastics to sewage being pumped into its waters. We have to take action now to tackle this crisis. Please help us share the video far and wide once it is released, to make this campaign as impactful as possible!