Video Production For Charities & Conservation in London
Award-winning documentaries, campaign films and fundraising content for charities, NGOs and conservation organisations. Based at our London HQ.
London HQ
Working Globally
1.9m
Raised with a single film
10+
Festival Awards
50+
Google Reviews
We started Here Now Films by making free films for charities. That was the beginning, before the retainers, the studio, the awards, any of it. The first films we ever made were for organisations that couldn’t afford a production company. It’s why the company exists.
Nine years later, the charity and environmental work hasn’t become a side project. It’s the foundation. From our London studio we’ve produced award-winning conservation documentaries, campaign films for the Woodland Trust, insect conservation films for Buglife International, and a year-long embedded documentary with the South West Peatland Partnership that’s been selected for film festivals.
We produce internationally too, our EcoTrust series in Uganda was featured on the Dehancer blog for its cinematography, and The Bio Estrela Project in Portugal won the CINEECO Best Landscape award. Our BBC documentary Survival: To The Brink and Back was recognised by the British Council.
This isn’t cause marketing dressed up as storytelling. It’s documentary filmmaking made with the same rigour we bring to a brand film for AlTi or a national campaign for FatFace. The difference is the subject matter deserves that standard more than most.
20+
Charity Productions
Overall Winner
Edinburgh Film Fest
£1.9M
Raised by one film
South West Peatland Partnership — Documentary — Somerset & Devon
The Living Layer
A year embedded with the South West Peatland Partnership, documenting one of the UK’s largest landscape-scale peatland restoration projects. Peatlands store twice the carbon of all the world’s forests combined, and Britain’s are in crisis. We followed the scientists, volunteers and landowners working to reverse decades of degradation across Exmoor and the Somerset Levels. The film has been selected for festival screening and anchors a growing body of environmental documentary work for the studio. This is the kind of project that takes patience, access and trust, all things we’d built over years of conservation filmmaking in the South West.
Award-Winning Documentary — Portugal
The Bio Estrela Project
A documentary about wildfire, regeneration and the people rebuilding a landscape after catastrophic fire in Portugal’s Serra da Estrela. The film won the CINEECO Best Landscape award and the Regional Panorama award, recognition that this kind of environmental storytelling can compete at festival level when the craft matches the subject. Shot on location in the Estrela mountain range, working with local communities and conservation scientists.
Woodland Trust — Conservation Film — Cornwall
Drone Seeding with the Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust’s first-ever drone seeding trial, a bold experiment in rethinking how we plant trees at scale. We documented the process from planning through to the first seeds hitting the ground in Cornwall, capturing a genuinely exciting moment in conservation technology. The film works as both a standalone documentary piece and as a campaign asset for the Trust’s reforestation programme.
“ I’d highly recommenced them to anyone looking to create high quality, watchable content, with a company that has a journalistic and high level of attention to detail and adaptable approach to covering a story. Also great fun to work with in general from the creative planning stages through to filming.”
Sam Manning, The Woodland Trust
What we produce for charities and conservation organisations
Every format below is something we’ve delivered for a charity or environmental client. Not a menu, a track record.
Campaign documentaries
Long-form and mid-form documentary films for fundraising, awareness and policy campaigns. The Living Layer, Bio Estrela and our Woodland Trust work all started here, the format that built the studio.
Fundraising films
Films designed to raise money. Our fundraising film for Great Western Credit Union raised £1.9M against an £800K target. The format works when the storytelling is honest enough to move people to act.
Impact and annual report films
Films that communicate measurable impact to donors, trustees and stakeholders. Not a slideshow with music, a piece of filmmaking that earns attention.
Testimonial and beneficiary films
Real stories from the people your work affects. We’ve produced these for AimHi Earth × PepsiCo, charity partners across the South West and national conservation organisations.
Event and conference coverage
From Chelsea Flower Show to conservation conferences. Not a camera on a tripod in the back of the room, proper production with editorial intent.
Social and campaign content
Multi-format packages cut from hero productions, built for Instagram, LinkedIn, email campaigns and paid distribution. Maximum reach from a single shoot.
The honest range.
We operate a transparent, collaborative pricing approach to help great people doing good work achieve their communication goals. The below prices are guidlines based on years of experience. They are not a prescription!
Campaign Film
From £9K
Single-day shoot. Interview-led storytelling. Scripting, production and edit included.
Documentary
From £15K
Multi-day production. Full creative development, cinematography, colour grade. Festival-ready if the story warrants it.
Annual Program
From £30K/yr
Ongoing content partnership. Multiple films across the year. Dedicated production partner who knows your cause.
Questions finance commissioners ask us.
The honest range: from £9,000 for a single campaign film, from £15,000 for a documentary, and from £30,000/year for an ongoing content partnership. We know charity budgets are constrained, we’ll work with you to find the format that delivers the most impact within the budget you actually have. We started by making free films for charities, so trust us when we say we understand the financial reality.
Yes, this is something we plan for from the start. A fundraising film needs to move people to act. An awareness piece needs to educate and engage. They require different registers, but they can be cut from the same production if the shoot is planned with both outputs in mind. Our Buglife film was designed to work across fundraising, public engagement and policy audiences from a single production.
This is one of our deepest areas. We’ve produced peatland restoration documentaries (The Living Layer, for the South West Peatland Partnership), wildfire and regeneration films (The Bio Estrela Project, CINEECO award winner), insect conservation (Buglife International), reforestation (Woodland Trust drone seeding), nature prescribing (Somerset Local Nature Partnership), regenerative agriculture (Heligan), community growing (Newquay Orchards), and international conservation (EcoTrust Uganda). We also produced a BBC documentary recognised by the British Council.
Yes. Our EcoTrust documentary series was produced in Uganda and The Bio Estrela Project was shot on location in Portugal’s Serra da Estrela mountains. We’re London-based with the infrastructure and experience to deliver internationally, including in complex locations and with sensitive communities.
It depends on the scope. A single campaign film can move in 4–8 weeks from brief to delivery. A longer documentary, like The Living Layer, which required seasonal access over a full year, takes as long as the story needs. Most of our charity documentary work falls in the 6–16 week range. We’ll give you a clear timeline on the first call.
The production process is very similar. The difference is in the storytelling register and the audience. A corporate video usually needs to satisfy internal stakeholders and generate commercial outcomes. A charity film needs to move people — donors, volunteers, policymakers, the public. The craft standard should be the same. The intent is what shifts. We produce both at the same level, and that’s what separates us from production companies who treat charity as a lower tier of work.
124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX, between Old Street and Angel. We also have teams in Cornwall, Bristol and Manchester. Most of our charity and environmental work happens on location, across the South West, nationally and internationally, but we plan, develop and post-produce everything from our London HQ.