ANDBC - Rural Roadtrips

The Mission: The coast gets the attention; the rural parts of the borough get driven past. Rural Roadtrips was built to change that — a series of films following driving routes through the countryside, stopping at the businesses along the way.

The Execution: A series rather than a single film, shot across a lot of ground. Each route had to feel like a journey worth making, which means the driving material has to carry momentum and the stops have to be worth stopping for — farm shops, makers, cafés, and the people who run them.

I directed and shot the series, with aerials doing the work of showing where you are and how the landscape shifts between stops. The logistics were the real challenge: many locations, many small businesses, each needing enough time on camera to come across as a person rather than a listing.

The Result: A series of route films profiling rural businesses right across the borough — and further repeat work for a council I now work with directly and regularly.