Every summer, many companies face an increase in accidents. Factors contributing to this rise include the engagement of temporary contract staff, holiday-related distractions, and environmental challenges such as heat.

Seeing or experiencing something too often can lead to a complacency and so this year Trinseo wanted to address and mitigate these challenges. They approached Dark Grey Europe to help produce something different: a series of videos. These 8 videos aimed to highlight specific incidents from Trinseo plants across the globe, emphasizing both the events and their subsequent learnings.

They needed to be genuine and convey the personal experiences of those involved and highlight the reality that a moment’s lack of focus or attention can cause accidents, and the wider impact that accidents have on teams, families, and individuals.

To achieve this, we needed to understand the background of the incidents and the people involved so we set up a series of interviews with the main stakeholders including plant managers and EH&S. This was then followed up with more detailed interviews with other witnesses and the victims where possible.

Each video featured interviews with Trinseo employees who were directly impacted by these incidents. These first-hand accounts detailed what transpired, how it affected staff, and the subsequent measures taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
All interviews were conducted in the respective local languages to ensure authenticity and clarity for the intended audience.

The incidents occurred in plants across the world in Europe, Asia and North America and so the pre-production needed to take into account the costs, differences in production and language factors.

We set up initial intake calls with the plant leaders, safety teams and where possible the people directly involved in the incidents. Based on this we prepared story synopses and questions as a basis for the interviews.
Dark Grey Europe directly handled the video production in European locations, specifically the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Finland. For shoots in the US and Indonesia, our role involved providing detailed scripts, interview questions, and production call sheets. Our guidance also extended to recommendations on shooting style and equipment selection.

Additionally, to optimize costs and futureproof resources, generic b-roll footage was captured from the plants, during the production providing useful resources for future film needs.
The production timeline was stringent. With filming commencing in June and videos being released weekly from July through August, there was significant pressure on all stages of production.

Language was a critical consideration as we needed to get natural responses to really get the human emotional impact of the incidents across and so the interviews needed to be done in local language. The preparation and briefing for the local teams was therefore critical. Additionally, each video needed subtitling in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Indonesian, and Finnish.

On top of this the pre-production, production and post-production schedule was very tight with a video being internally launched each week during July and August in all languages and the production and postproduction squeezed sometimes into a couple of weeks including transcribing, translation, subtitling and approval.

To address this complexity and ensure accuracy within tight deadlines and limited budget, we made use of several AI tools for transcription, translation, and the subtitling process.

Despite the challenges described, and the additional difficulty of planning around people’s availability due to the summer holiday period, the project was delivered on schedule. The video series, which was introduced by Trinseo’s CEO and Group Head of Production, received significant attention and very positive initial feedback, highlighting the success of the collaborative effort.

The professionality of the project and final films also helped highlight Trinseo’s global presence and international character, as well as showcasing the variety of products and markets served to a wider Trinseo audience. And more importantly the people and teams involved, many from newly acquired businesses, in making Trinseo a successful and safe company.