Videoproduction: Explaining Land Degradation Neutrality

Land Degradation Neutrality: Why it matters, how it´s done

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Land degradation is a global problem, the extent of which is as yet little known to the general public. On behalf of GIZ, BMZ and UNCCD, we developed a comprehensive explanatory film that conveys the concept of land degradation neutrality (LDN).

cases beninj firmin at work

Soil expert Firmin Amaji working with Farmers in South Benin

Documenting a worldwide problem without traveling around the world

More often than not, explanatory videos about global challenges shall show examples from a variety of locations, while an effort is made to save on travel costs and emissions.

In theses cases, it can often make sense for the main elements of the film to be produced by the director him- or herself, and to complement this material with footage from other countries, to enrich the didactic experience of the global nature of the issue.

In this case, we centered the film around Benin, a country especially affected by land degradation. Additional material was partly produced by GIZ or came from a variety of archives from Themenbüro, UNCCD or GIZ and commercial video stock archives.

A particular challenge was the resulting heterogeneity of the material. A strong oral narrative thread runs through the otherwise rather heterogeneous material, so that the end result was a convincing cinematic solution.

Concept and direction, storyboard: Fabian Brandt, Marie Bertsch

Script, film and photography in Benin: Fabian Brandt

Video editing: Jannik Frank

Animated Infographic: Anna Koch