Making A11Y visible — and putting the people behind the work at the centre of the story.
The brief sounded simple: create a presentation film introducing the Bulgarian Accessibility Centre of Excellence and showcase the people behind the work.
The entire project — from the first idea and storyboard through writing, production and direction — was developed and delivered in roughly one week, with the finished film created for an A11Y event in San Jose, California.
The video needed to introduce a team working in a field that is often technical and difficult to explain in a short format. More importantly, it needed to communicate why their work matters.
Our challenge as filmmakers was to turn that mission into something people could understand in a few minutes — without making it feel like a corporate training video.
The Mission Behind the Film
Google describes accessibility as part of its wider effort to make products and information more useful and accessible to everyone, while its accessibility teams work with product teams, standards bodies and people with disabilities to improve experiences.
A One-Week Production
In approximately one week, we went from a blank page to a finished presentation film.
There was no luxury of months of development, endless rounds of concept exploration or a large production window.
Making a Technical Subject Feel Human
This was probably the biggest creative challenge.
Accessibility can become very technical very quickly.
There are standards, frameworks, testing methods, assistive technologies, design principles, and development practices involved in the work. Google’s accessibility resources themselves span product design, development, testing, standards, and collaboration with people with disabilities.
But a presentation film has limited time.
The audience doesn’t need every detail.
They need a reason to care.
