Grief is the thing with feathers

FCB Inferno has released the latest in its Believe In Me series for the UK's leading children’s charity – with this campaign aiming to raise awareness of the support needed for children who have lost loved ones to Covid-19.

Directed by Sam Brown and produced by Rogue Films, with VFX from The Mill, the campaign film, Crow, depicts a schoolboy talking about recently losing his mother to an unexplained illness. As he reflects on the shock of her sudden death, he is troubled by a crow that follows him, taunting him day and night; a powerful symbol for the overwhelming, inescapable sadness the boy is experiencing. 

The ad was filmed using a mixture of CGI animation and live action using a real trained crow. The black bird is a potent symbol of death and grief and was used in Max Porter’s book Grief is The Thing With Feathers, in which a grieving widower – who’s obsessed with poet Ted Hughes’ work Crow – is plagued by visits from the mysterious feathered harbinger of doom. 

Before Covid-19, official stats showed 1 in 29 of 5-16 year olds had been bereaved of a parent or sibling – that's at least one child in every average class. Though there is no current data revealing how much this number has increased due to the pandemic, as of 1 September, 41,504 people had died within 28 days of being tested positive for COVID-19 – so it’s likely more children and young people will be experiencing bereavement.