CASEY BAILEY
A love letter to Birmingham. Written in light.
In 2022, Birmingham had the world's attention. Peaky Blinders had put the city on the cultural map. The Commonwealth Games was about to give it a global stage. Birmingham City Council wanted to mark the moment with something that felt as real and alive as the city itself.
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Morgan Tedd, our Creative Director, was born and bred in Birmingham. Angel has worked in and alongside the city for years and held a close relationship with the team at Birmingham City Council. When this brief landed it felt like a responsibility as much as a commission.
The answer was already in the city, in the form of Casey Bailey, Birmingham's poet laureate, and his piece Dear Brum. A raw, honest, deeply felt love letter to a city that deserves every word of it. Morgan worked closely with Casey to rework the original piece for film, then built something extraordinary around it.
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Morgan conceived the entire visual approach, shot it, and edited every frame himself. Using a double exposure technique that layered the city's streets, its people, its character and its history into a single flowing piece of film, Dear Brum became something cinematic and deeply personal at the same time.
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We premiered the film at Birmingham City Council House to an audience of stakeholders, influencers and councillors. The moment it ended the social team made it live across all channels simultaneously. Within hours it was being shared and picked up by Brummies and people far beyond the city who recognised something true in it.
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Dear Brum went viral at a moment when Birmingham was performing on a global stage for the first time in a generation. The Commonwealth Games sold a record 1.5 million tickets and was watched by almost half the UK population.
The film won a Royal Television Society Award in the best promotional content category. Morgan's award. Earned completely.
