Seatbelt safety video earns worldwide recognition

An innovative and moving seatbelt safety video promoted by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP) has had more than one million views on YouTube and has even been shown to Bill Gates and movie director James Cameron. The video, Embrace Life, is part of a campaign to encourage people to wear their seatbelts.

The short film depicts a man sitting in his living room and miming driving a car; he then appears to have an accident and his daughter and wife throw their arms around him in the same way that a seatbelt works.

The video has had unprecedented global success online, with international interest for TV licensing from countries including the US, Brazil, Canada and France.

Embrace Life has been viewed in 129 different countries, was the fifth top-rated video on YouTube in April and is the most top-rated YouTube film to date in the education category. It was also seen by many influential figures at the Ted.Com conference [ideas worth spreading] in California.

The video is helping SSRP to increase road safety and reduce road casualties across Sussex, through education, engineering and enforcement. Graffiti artwork is being used to promote the campaign throughout Sussex.

Writer and director, Daniel Cox, explained: “The SSRP was already looking to create a road safety campaign with a more positive message, so when I approached its communications manager Neil Hopkins and his team with ideas for a fresh take on road safety filming, it was evident that we were all on the same page in our quest to deliver a powerful message, but in a new way.

“Key to the film’s creation was to focus on a message that didn’t take a conventional route to shock and scare the audience; rather, it was my intention to bring the audience in on the conversation of road safety, specifically seat belts, and the best way to do this was to make a film that could engage the viewer purely visually and could be seen and understood by all.

“I wanted to create a visual metaphor addressing how a single decision in a person’s day can greatly influence both their own and their loved ones’ lives. Choosing to film the story inside the family living room represents the feelings many people equate with their own car; it represents a level of safety and protection from the ‘outer’ world. So to create the emotion of this dramatic moment, I wanted to tell the story using slow motion to allow the audience the time to be drawn into the film’s world and to let them connect with, and project their own feelings onto, the scenario playing out before them. I wanted to give the audience the time to breathe, to absorb our message and using slow motion was the right technique to allow this to happen.”

The production received generous backing from Take2 Films, which provided the camera and equipment to bring the story to life in just two days of filming.

The film’s producer, Sarah Alexander, said: “The scariest part of making anything is the first time you show other people. Touching people’s emotions is not a science at all, it is an incredibly difficult thing to do and even after working on it for months you are still not sure how people will react. We always aimed to make something of television or cinema quality, so that [cinema] is where we launched it. The first time I saw it on a cinema screen in front of an audience of hardened police officers and realised they were touched, I was sure we had succeeded.”

Mr Hopkins said: “The first time we showed Embrace Life was a real ‘heart-in-mouth’ occasion. From the very earliest concepts, I had complete and utter faith, both in the product and also in Daniel and Sarah, having worked closely with them for ten months. However, you can never quite be sure how everyone else with react.”

Mr Hopkins said the innovative approach to the video meant innovative marketing tools were needed to ensure it was received with the same impact.

“Embrace Life is a very different road safety product and I wanted the marketing and p