JOURNAL

Little Black Book sat down with our very own Executive Producer Rhiannon Lewis to chat about the making of The National Lottery’s new Because of You campaign. A six-day, UK-wide production, celebrating seven remarkable good causes, all linked by one message: these stories exist because of National Lottery players.

LBB > What excited you about this brief?

Rhiannon:
From the moment it landed, we knew it had heart. The National Lottery supports over 660,000 good causes, with £30 million going out every single week. That scale is huge, but the brief wasn’t about big numbers. It was about real people, real communities and real impact.

And with Claudia Winkleman fronting it? We were all in immediately. She brings warmth, wit and complete authenticity, which is exactly what the campaign needed.

LBB > The production involved seven films in six days. How did you approach that?

Rhiannon:
With military precision and a lot of snacks!
But seriously, the logistics were enormous. Multiple crews, including our Northern team, criss-crossing the country, seven totally different good causes, and one tight timeline.

The trick was prep. Weeks of research meant our team already felt embedded before we arrived. Commercials Director Leo McCrea and producer Liv Johnson had personally met every contributor in advance, cups of tea, long conversations, a lot of trust-building. So on shoot days, it didn’t feel like “filmmaking with strangers.” It felt like revisiting friends.

LBB > Real people can be unpredictable on camera — how did you make sure the stories felt authentic?

Rhiannon:
Authenticity was genuinely our North Star. We weren’t staging or smoothing over anything. Leo’s documentary background really shone, he has that gift of knowing when to gently lead and when to fade into the background.

Our job as producers was to create a space where contributors felt comfortable, not performed. When people trust you, the magic appears: the nerves, the joy, the tears, the pride. Those tiny moments you can’t script, that's where the craftsmanship lies.

LBB > You worked across such varied causes — from gardening therapy to wheelchair rugby. How did you keep the films connected?

Rhiannon:
Each cause had its own tone and visual identity, and we wanted that. Bloom Sheffield is soft and sensory. North Wales Wheelchair Rugby is big, bold and brilliant chaos. Cook for Good is warm, loud, colourful community energy.

But Claudia’s presence and the narrative spine tied them all together. There’s a shared rhythm, a shared humanity. Plus, our gorgeous drone work helped root each story firmly in its own patch of the UK, which was important for authenticity.

LBB > Social content was a big part of this project. What was your approach there?

Rhiannon:
We never treat social as an afterthought. We built hero films and social-first content hand-in-hand, with our content creators working alongside the main crew in real time. Phone-shot moments, ASMR gardening clips, fun cooking segments, off-the-cuff chats, all the weird and wonderful little details that audiences actually engage with online. And obviously, Claudia was a dream. She’s naturally brilliant in looser, personality-led content.

We wanted a full ecosystem, not just cut-downs. Something alive.

LBB > What were the standout moments for you personally?

Rhiannon:
So many. The donkeys visiting care homes, I mean, come on. Watching wheelchair rugby players talk about what community means to them. Seeing volunteers genuinely tear up when Claudia thanked them. Even the frantic travel days had their own charm (and yes, Tebay was visited).

But honestly? The best moment was watching the edit, cut by our in-house editor Chloe Isherwood, for the first time and seeing all that hard work, chaos and heart stitch together into something that genuinely means something.

LBB > Final thoughts?

Rhiannon:
It’s rare to work on something that leaves you professionally proud and personally moved. This project did both.

Huge credit to the clients for trusting the process, to Claudia for her wholehearted kindness, and to every Good Cause for letting us into their worlds. And of course, to our Gate team, who pulled off this monster of a shoot with humour, heart and absolute graft.

It really was a special one.

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