Brand filmScriptwriting & concept
Bancroft's
A promotional film for a school that didn't need more applicants — it needed different ones.
Client
Bancroft's
Private school, London
Our role
Concept & script
Pupil research, narrative structure, script
Format
Promotional film, shot over three days on anamorphic lenses.
Audience
Prospective pupils and their parents
01The brief
Already oversubscribed.So the film couldn't be about getting in.
Bancroft's is academically selective, gets great results and attracts bright children of ambitious parents. It does not need a film to drive admissions — it has more applicants than places.
The challenge was a different one: attracting children whose interests run beyond academia. The school wanted to show the range of what happens outside the classroom, to the kind of pupil who wouldn't otherwise picture themselves there.
A recruitment film aimed at people who aren't looking to be recruited.
That reframing decided the tone. Nothing in the script could sound like a prospectus, because a prospectus is exactly what this audience has already skipped past.
02Where the words came from
We asked the
pupils first.
Before writing anything, we met the school and then sourced contributions from every year group on what being at Bancroft's actually means to them.
Those answers guided the script. It's the cheapest possible insurance against a school film sounding like a brochure: the sentiment is theirs, so the film stays true to the place rather than to the marketing.
Let a pupil say it if a pupil already said it better.
Structure as a journey through a day, not a list of facilities.
Name the activity, never the advantage — swimming, acting, metalwork, cricket, not “enrichment opportunities”.
End on the doors it opens, because that's the parent's question and the child's answer at the same time.
03The film
Three days,
every corner
of the school.
Filming followed children across the extracurricular range — swimming and acting through to metalwork classes — with anamorphic lenses and a full lighting package giving it a cinematic finish rather than a corporate one.
The script was written to that plan and adjusted against it, so the voiceover carries the viewer through the day instead of narrating over unrelated coverage.
04The result
A film about
the doors it
opens.
The finished piece tells the story of the access these pupils have to non-academic subjects, and what that access leads to. Bancroft's were thrilled, with resounding positive feedback from across the team.
- Pupil researchContributions gathered across every year group to ground the narrative.
- ConceptA journey through what it means to be a student here, rather than a facilities tour.
- ScriptNarrative structure and voiceover, written to the shooting plan.
- Story directionWhich activities carry which beat, and where each one lands in the cut.
Production, direction and post were delivered by the film production team. Our part was the thinking and the words.