The Kodak/Nahemi Student Commerical Awards are run annually and set the challenge to university students across the UK to create a 30 second commercial, using one 10minute roll of 16mm celluloid film, from four briefs set by advertising agencies. ‘Kodak joins with loads of different organisations like the Soil Association,’ a collaboration initiated between Kodak and the Soil Association in 2023 by John Podpadec of UWE himself. ‘My mate Liv, the director of Footprint Follows, had this wacky idea. To be honest, I’m not a thousand percent sure where it came from.’
The commercial takes place in a church during a wedding, where the excited chatter of the guests is contrasted with a surreal 6ft carbon footprint that follows the bride down the aisle and looms at her shoulder during the celebration photos. ‘Obviously, the climate crisis is a very dark topic and it’s very hot on a lot of people’s minds. It can be quite upsetting,’ Amy explains. ‘We wanted to use a rom com style in our commercial to bring out a comedy effect. And, at the end of the commercial, you’re thinking about your own carbon footprint. Your carbon footprint is your partner for life, so obviously there’s themes of how you can change that, that’s the effect we wanted to give.’
This is clearly what the Kodak judges could see when choosing their winners, with Amy’s team being recognised out of hundreds of submissions. ‘I think we were just blown away,’ she says about the other productions Footprint Follows was up against. ‘It was a really high standard and everyone did such an amazing job.’