Getting Real About Gambling: A Short Film
The Client: The Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Office of Problem Gambling Services (OPGS)
OPGS approached us to create a short film to accompany the launch of the Let’s Get Real About Gambling platform. They wanted to capture the stories and perspectives of thought leaders in the problem gambling space—from ambassadors in recovery to the executive director of OPGS.
I conducted all of the interviews compiled in this short film — spending days on set and out in the community trying to help people tell their story in a way that felt authentic and comfortable to them.
The film premiered at the 2024 Massachusetts Problem Gambling Conference: Equity in Action
After the release of the short film—and the enthusiastic praise from community members and stakeholders across the state—OPGS asked us to take the long-form video and splice it into a series of shorter clips to use for future campaigns and include in the LGRAG toolkit and other promotional efforts.
Our goal was to inspire reflection and conversation about the risks, warning signs, and community impact of problem gambling.
Key Message: No matter who you are, you can be harmed by problem gambling. And some of us are at higher risk than others. That’s why we need to talk openly and honestly about gambling to protect ourselves and our communities. And the time to do it is now.
Challenges:
While a preventative public health approach would typically discourage gambling or take an anti-gambling stance, OPGS is funded largely by the gambling industry. So content must remain relatively “neutral” while still highlighting real risks and impact.
The long-form video was created specifically for the OPGS conference—and the audience was already aligned around the public health approach. Thus, the video content was more provocative (and less gambling neutral). These mini videos will be public facing and need to be ‘dialed back’ to reflect the voice and tone of other OPGS campaign content.
The long-form video is the result of hours of interview footage with different participants captured over the last year and consolidated to fit into this ~11 minute format. These short videos need to convey the same overall message as the longform video but in a much tighter format.