Nez Discusses Rimmel's Bid to Beat the Beauty Bullies

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Rimmel London and BETC London recently kicked off an anti-beauty bullying campaign, with the release of I Will Not Be Deleted [below], a powerful docu-style spot in which young people share personal stories of being targeted by trolls, for not meeting conventional beauty standards. 

shots caught up with Pulse Films' Nez, who directed the spot, to find out more about the 'liberating' situation of casting for a beauty brand without a specific brief and why finding an identity has never been harder for a generation raised on social media.

What were your first reactions on receiving the script, which is obviously very different from most beauty commercials? Did you know immediately how you wanted to tackle it?

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I guess I did know early on that a lot of the film would be informed by the people we cast and by their stories. I think early versions of the script had a little more technique in them to compensate for that but it naturally began to simplify through the process. It became clear that giving the cast their platform to be honest and vulnerable should take priority. 

The research was surprising. 115 million images being deleted from social media last year because of ‘beauty bullying' is concerning. And I liked the unconventional approach a brand like Rimmel were taking to try to tackle it.

The young people featured are key to the honest, authentic tone of the film - how did you approach casting? 

We had to be very sensitive in our approach to casting. We were asking young people to re-live some of their worst moments and that isn’t easy. So, we tried to keep out of the casting room and mainly spoke to them via Skype so they could be in the comfort of their own homes. 

It was liberating casting for a beauty brand without a very specific brief for the on-camera talent.  It felt revolutionary that Rimmel were more interested in what our cast had to say and how their stories could affect change in the industry. Their stories were the most valuable part of the film and as a result I feel the cast looked and felt more natural and became even more empowered when in make-up.  They feel real and beautiful at the same time and I think that’s refreshing.

How did you go about drawing emotional responses from the people featured in the film?

After listening to their stories we created a script that could weave their experiences together in ‘spoken word’ form. The challenge was always going to be giving them their stories in this scripted way and having them perform it on camera with the same sincerity as they did when they first shared it with me. 

We kept the set quiet, relaxed and intimate. And made sure we allowed enough time to really sit with them. They just needed to be themselves and I really wanted them to understand that. Thankfully, I think they did.

How much responsibility did you feel as a director, particularly when shooting close-ups of the girls' faces, to portray them in a 'beautiful' light, particularly given the cyber-bullying they'd gone through? 

I felt my responsibility was to not create something artificial or manipulated.  But instead try to find a more honest and beautiful aesthetic that was universally empowering for them all. Whether it was Eden or Cara, we would treat it with the same intent.

What was the biggest challenge for you? 

It was challenging listening to some of the stories if I’m honest. Hearing what some of them went through, and still go through. I’m not sure I could have grown up as a teenager with social media. It’s really fucking difficult. Trying to find some sort of identity is maybe the hardest it’s ever been for this young generation.

And the most rewarding aspect? 

The evolution of the cast. They really came a long way in a short time. The idea of what we were doing must of seemed daunting to them at first. But you could really see them becoming a little more confident through the process, by the end of the shoot they all felt a little taller to me.