Clear Cities press release video project. Emulsa, Gijón

The commission to create Clear Cities communication video arose a few weeks ago when Emulsa Gijón –the project leader, together with its six European partners– sent to the studio the initiative content, ready to turn it into an illustrative, contemporary and audiovisual press release. It would follow the line of development of other Interreg projects.

We would work out the 5W asking the current data help to make it watchable, audible and understandable for communication between partners, their connections and the citizens. The inputs would be adapted and optimised in a neat and easy audiovisual language in order to be played in their group presentations, networks and digital platforms.

**So, what is Clear Cities?**

To sum up, Clear Cities is a project based on the promotion of Carbón-Less Urban Waste management policies, so that sustainable, safe and resilient cities can be enjoyed in the practice. Its aim is to achieve the objectives established by the European Directive, through a set of measures and actions focused on sharing problems and good practices.

Project philosophy & briefing

Honestly, it was great fun to receive a commission like this. It consisted of creating kinda vapour cleaning tool of the needs, either the ones human race creates by itself or those we allow the same race beings to be created, without caring about side effects and just because it is egomaniac, all-powerfull and almighty.

Eventually the result is just the same, the increase of the exorbitant harmful habits which affect interspecies and turn into unnoticed given off rotten gases that gently destroy any ecosystem wherever. Yisucrist.

I meant, we would like to make a contemporary, dynamic video, to be coherent with the project’s values and objectives. Nice to prioritise quality; we would like it kind, attractive for platforms and it would be great to focus on the scope and visual impact wanted by its target audience.

To sum up, a good brownie project as the ones I love all about garbage, but also a good Green one, which is Interreg Europe main topic project, together with Connected, Smart, Social, Citizens and Governance.

**How would Clear Cities be shown?**

The project shares platform with some other projects of Interreg Europe programme. This programme is beeing developed through a solid experience of initiatives that are reflected in its communication (visual identity and established brandbook with typographies, colour range, operating rules, etc, as well as the topics).

However, the audiovisual language to be used through the projects presentations videos under development lends itself to efficient innovation and focus on experience, background and freedom of creation of a TI entrepreneur whatever, –a rural ecodesign microstudio whose raison d’être in explorating new ways cares nothing more and nothing less than a staggering egg.

This is where we would specially share with Clear Cities one of its best practices.

The audiovisual language

The evolution of printing and digital media is dizzying, specially the last one.

The consequent audiovisual literacy enables creation and broadcasting of a promoting narrative new tools to understand and contribute positively to the joy and health of acquiring perspectives of data-driven realities. The fact of developing turns very interesting when it has all to do with Arts and Humanities in this twenty first century R&D, along with scientific knowledge.

About the concept. The process of creating the video has gone through several phases in order to assemble the elements. The briefing’s concept has been transferred and translated to the final work as a sweet pet serie to allow the benefits they can grow up when illustrating and communicating.

As for the graphism, we would keep part of the visual elements from the original Interreg Europe’s visuals -its coloured hexagons, topics and typography-. However, we would give a new colour range based on the Green (topic and identity colour) of Clear Cities and we would add the elements that would optimise the video play.

The speech. There are a sort of AI watermarks together with the audio expression of what the project requests, and this turns into a real current good luck.

We have born in mind how historical and cultural contexts shape every single audience segment experiences and what the hell that has to do with their age, life course and the defining features of a generation. Besides, we considered how they feed back and impact not only through their work, perception and use of technology but also how they understand the development of an effective environmental sustainability.

So we would meet the challenge of collecting innovative ideas, stimulating initiatives and supporting activities for Clear Cities by ending to give the video the concept of kawaii pets.

They would be in particular ecokawaii pets, in the mood for getting their audience: some conscious & candid souls who belongs to X Generation plus a great part of Y Generation and the whole Z, with their kawaii (kawa) way of dealing with culture and trends. We wouldn’t forget how they share their focus and attention, as long as they feel listened and spoken to in their own language, whatever their tool or mother tongue may be.

At the beginning there was a thin little banner al the bottom of the video sliding from right to left that mimic the 24-hour news broadcasts in the Western countries, whose repetitive content was It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.

But we deleted it.

Kawaii concept

Kawaii (かわいい) is a Japanese word that refers to the cute, to the aesthetic feeling that has been rooted through the development of its country of origin since the twentieth century. It has been exported internationally and it has become a symbol of identity of Japanese culture, as well as business areas, where Western countries would likely consider it a funny joke.

We have taken to the video the tribe of current pets that live in the cities and countries participating in Clear Cities project: a bunny, a moussybear, a little sheep, a kitten, a little cow as well, a small crustacean and a smiling bee.

We thought them cute and collaborative enough to get to release through Clear Cities the gathered data in existing reports that conclude in the fact that promotion of caring and trustful behaviour set the focus of attention and reach the optimum impact on habitats and human beings health exposed to kawaii culture and communication.

A little further then: ecokawaii. What if that traditional Japanese concept linked to kawaii marketing as a passive rebellion against the values of austerity and sacrifice was to also include the required concept of ecology in manufacturing and processing, in order to not only to continue to shake the foundations of a stand still strong patriarchal society but also to put into practice the adorable question of an environmental joint responsibility that belongs to all Generations?

It is a question that comes to my mind after the prologue of El arte japonés de hacerte sonreir, by Alegría Jimenez Naranco –otaku journalist– at the book Los secretos de la cultura kawaii, writen by Bárbara Fernández García, International PhD in Literature and Language, with a thesis on manga comics and analysis of fictions and characters. Collaborator in tebeosfera.com cataloguing project. She is Asturian, by the way.

The Ecokawaii Team exists and stars Clear Cities: Promoting Carbon-Less Urban Waste management policies for sustainable, safe and resilient cities.

C L E A R C I T I E S W E B P R O J E C T

Further bibliographic information from participants related to this post, Waste Management, International Relations, Tourism, Translation & Interpretation, Music Schools, Primary School Teaching as well as some other beings with indescribable jobs, plus digital reports about culture, impact, benefits, influence of kawaii, and the reason of the aesthetics of a Neojapanese, is available in a packed folder here and またはこちらも.

Thanks for dropping by.

#lapilaposts

Project: Clear Cities press release video project & reels: Promoting Carbón Lless Urban Waste management policies for sustainable, safe and resilient cities. Emulsa Gijón. A video about how decisions made in everyday life shape present and future environmental issues.