How do you navigate the highly charged and emotive issue of gun violence in US schools while also making enough of an impact to effect real change? McCann New York’s Yellow Pencil-winning entry Generation Lockdown for March for Our Lives was so affecting it was referenced in Congress.

Generation Lockdown, created for the youth anti-gun violence activist group March for Our Lives, had to achieve the most impact while causing the least trauma to those taking part.The team at McCann, two of whom had a personal connection to the project, created this film with a view to amplifying the message of March for Our Lives at a time of high political tension in the United States relating to gun violence and school shootings.

Vice Presidents and Creative Directors at McCann New York Karsten Jurkschat and Alex Little both came to the US from Australia to work for McCann and had never experienced a shooting drill before. On experiencing one for the first time they realised what would be most effective on film would be to be taken through this by one of the young people who lives in the reality of the daily danger of school shootings. “It captures the raw truth of what children learn at school in preparation for an active shooter,” says Little.