WASTE & LOSS
A project on food waste intended for middle schools in the Lombardy Region.
BRIEF
Regione Lombardia, the government agency of the Milan region in Italy, was looking for a creative way to explain the phenomenon of food waste and food loss to hundreds of thousands of students in the middle schools in their area.
OUR ANSWER
Having full creative freedom – within a budget! – and with the only requirement to fill four didactic units of one hour each, we came up with the idea of having an interactive game follow an educational film, as well as discussion rounds and a final event where each school class presented its results.
THE PROCESS
Research before all! Our data come from several verified sources. After that, we came up with a solid story – edutainment projects cannot only be factual, they need narratives, too! – and had one team working on the film and another on the game.
VIDEO
The film (20 minutes) represents the introductory module that hopefully conveys all the information to the student. The tale is written in edutainment form, and winds around several different characters to explore their point of view. There is no bad or good character; everybody is part of the problem and can help with their puzzle piece. The film directly involves the students in class by asking them direct questions – so that nobody falls asleep! – The film tells the story of a crew on set, captured with the intent of filming a divulgative video about food waste. The protagonist, a narcissist, and cynical YouTube star, realizes that the written material sucks! The script is banal and old school, the graphics are horrible and look like a retro PowerPoint presentation! So he tries to re-imagine the narration with the help of the other characters until he starts to see the big picture.
GAME
Structured as a branching decision-based story, the game puts into action our research effort and engages the students. The game presents six characters, each one with a precise role in the food chain: Consumer, Industry CEO, Farmer, Distributor, Shop manager, and Restaurant Chef. To understand the different perspectives, each school class will play all of the six characters. The game is a survival with a multiple-answer structure in which the player’s goal is to proceed as further as possible. We observed several indie video games to study their mechanics; and based our structure on Reigns by Nerial, a survival where the player, as a Monarc, makes decisions to ensure the prosperity of their reign. There is no golden answer! Each verdict will make someone happy and someone angry. We dedicated two teaching modules to our game. Module #2 is a demo, module #3 is the playable version. The whole school class participates as a unit, briefly debating each choice before giving the verdict.
Credits:
- W&L
- Client: Aria for Regione Lombardia
- Coordination: Intellera @giuseppe @marta
- Subject & creativity: The Jack Stupid
- Research & analysis: Luca Ferrario
- Creative lead + executive prod: Luis Felipe Bueno, Matteo Di Gioia
- Project lead: Chiara di Michele
- BRAND IDENTITY
- Lead designer: Luca Wist Ferrario
- Designer: Davide Lerman Perucchini
- GAME
- Lead: Luis Felipe Bueno
- Illustration: Marco Perico
- Art direction: Luca Ferrario, Davide Perucchini
- 3D: Giovanni Matteotti, Bartolomeo Balleggi
- Programming: Luis Felipe Bueno, Bartolomeo Balleggi
- Copy: Vivian Barbullushi
- Tech consultancy: Simone Sanvito
- FILM CREW
- Screenplay and direction: Matteo di Gioia
- Creative producer: Chiara Di Michele
- Producer: Alessia Gualla
- AD: Stefano Galli
- DOP: Pietro Agostini, Stefano Brandolini
- Camera: Raffaele Aquilante
- Grip: Tommaso Mogno
- Sound: Davide De Benedetti
- DIT: Maryvéronique Myriam Lecoq
- Set design: Elena Fumagalli
- Styling: Lorenzo Seghezzi, Rafaela Aardewijn Reis
- MUA: Giada Rusmini
- Hair: Helena Collaviti
- Editing: Matteo Di Gioia, Maryvéronique Myriam Lecoq
- Grading: Pietro Agostini
- Art direction: Luca Ferrario
- Graphic design: Davide Perucchini, Marco Perico
- 3D art & VFX: Giovanni Matteotti, Bartolomeo Balleggi
- Motion design: Luca Ferrario, Marco Perico, Maryvéronique Lecoq, Matteo Di Gioia
- Sound design & Mix: Chris Gramaglia
- Rental: Okidoki, Media Making
- Diver: Francesca Beatrice Ferrari
- CAST
- Leonardo Mantelli
- Nathalie Gabrieli
- Matilda Celli
- Sarah Bagorha
- TiaMat
- Riccardo Betteghella
- Antonella Morea
- Sonia Litrico
- Alessandro Delfino
- Claudia Barbieri
- Consuelo Mauri
- Enzo Di Sciullo
- Michele Basile
- Gianpiero Pitinzano
- Cecilia Vecchio
- EXTRAS
- Christian Gramaglia
- Alessia Marcandalli
- Filippo Loi
- Bianka Schurina
- Chujia Wang
- Giovanni Matteotti
- Marco Perico
- Giada Rusmini
- Rafaela Aardewijn Reis
