How Brave Spark Hijacked Time to Show Why Women Change Their Winter Exercise Routines

There are some parts of Autumn that are undeniably great. Hot cocoa in front of a fire. Warm, cozy pubs. The festive lights going up and the countdown to Christmas beginning.

But the nights drawing in brings dangers too. And it poses a particular threat to women who want to exercise outdoors. 

A whopping 72 per cent of women change their outdoor exercise routines during winter. Because when it’s dark, there can be no accidental wrong turns. No listening to music when you need your wits about you. Constant glances over the shoulder. An activity that should ignite joy instead evokes nervousness and fear of harassment.

That’s why Sport England and its iconic This Girl Can campaign is working for change. They’re calling for everyone to unite so that, as the clocks go back, we can collectively Lift The Curfew and help make getting active outdoors safer for women.

#LetsLiftTheCurfew is now in its second year, and as the clocks changed last month, Sport England worked with supporters across the UK to host events, produce guides and get people talking about the collective need to tackle this issue. 

The campaign was spearheaded by a flagship run in Manchester on Monday 28th October, an amazing event that saw glow-in-the-dark footsteps light up the ground with words that spotlighted the feelings women experience when getting active outdoors after the clocks go back.

This message deserved an even wider audience. So to mark the clocks going back in a poignant way, we went to the home of time to demand change.

Greenwich is the place where east meets west. Where time itself is defined. And at the heart of Greenwich sits Meridian House, a stunning Art Deco building with a clock tower you can quite literally set your watch too.

That is, until we used a bit of VFX trickery to hijack the dial. Soon after the clocks went back, followers of This Girl Can’s social channels were met with the impressive sight of Meridian House lit up in bright bold colours and a message being displayed.

But the message was one that subverted the bold, confident ‘This Girl Can’ moniker we’re all so familiar with.

The message was seemingly being projected onto the tower as the hands on the clock reversed from 2am to 1am – precisely the time the clocks do go back and which causes such a decline in physical activity.

Of course, this work was more technical wizardry than outdoor ad (though we have fooled people before) and I’m super proud of the team for devising, creating and producing the whole thing in less than three weeks.

That’s no mean feat for a relatively technical challenge. For instance, replicating that 2am feeling was a challenge. How do you create a convincing nighttime shot when time and logistical constraints meant you had to film at midday? We had to create a 3D environment to facilitate projection, allowing us to integrate the original footage with our visual effects seamlessly. To achieve this, we de-lit the footage using precise light measurements captured on set – these measurements enabled us to calculate values to remove any baked-in lighting or shadows, leaving us with a neutral base to relight the scene from scratch.

The primary light source for this project was a large projected element, which defined much of the scene’s atmosphere. Once the relit renders were complete, we composited the various passes together, enhancing the shot with secondary details like streetlights, car headlights, cloudscapes, and a waning crescent moon. These elements brought the nighttime look and feel to life. Clever huh?

And, I think, totally worth it. Whilst there are already plenty of conversations about ‘faux OOH’ – indeed Brave Spark even recently participated in an entire panel on it – it feels to me like a good and cost effective way of stopping more thumbs in their scrolls. We’re not trying to dupe people, but we are trying to help brands and organisations with limited budgets extend their reach and message in new and eye-catching ways.

And if we can use the literal home of time to ensure people truly consider the implications of what darker nights does to women’s exercise schedules, then we must do all we can to make the streets safer.