Meet a Chamber member: Julia Alcamo from Happenstance Films

by Hannah Jackson

Hannah Jackson, Membership & Marketing Executive at Brighton Chamber talks to Julia Alcamo of Happenstance Films as part of Brighton Chamber’s Meet a Chamber member series, interviewing members to find out more about their business, who inspires them, and who they’re working with.

Hi Julia, can you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?

I’m Julia, Co-founder of Happenstance Films. We’re a Brighton-based production company, making films for brands, non-profit organisations and charities, but what makes us different is we take a documentary approach to all of our work. We love the format because it taps into what audiences want these days, which is really meaningful content – we love bringing that to the branded world. 

What does Happenstance mean?

It’s a lucky or happy coincidence. It’s the moment you run into something, and it falls into place. But that doesn’t happen in a predictable way. Because we’re documentary filmmakers we’re reliant on making the most out of our environment, but we can’t predict what happens – we’re always there to capture those happenstance moments. 

How important is branded documentary for businesses, and how does it differ from other filming formats?

The way that we approach stories is different. Rather than responding to a brief, we love to go out and search for stories first. Then we collaborate with brands or non-profits and bring the story together with their brand. 

It’s a bit of a risk, asking them to trust us in the process of making that film – documentary isn’t scripted. We put everything we can in place to make sure everyone’s happy with where the film’s going, but we work with real life, capturing moments as they happen.

How do you find stories?

We actively immerse ourselves in places where we might encounter stories. We talk about a Ven diagram we like to work with: the brand and being on message, the audience, and the film being culturally relevant. In the big picture, does this make sense to do right now? Those three really need to overlap, and that’s where your best story lies. 

You joined the Chamber not too long ago, what’s your advice to new members?

Don’t just see it as a place to find customers, but as a place where you can find collaborators and people who can inspire you. It’s a wonderful way to meet a bunch of different people doing different things, but who’re equally invested in helping each other. 

Being a new business, the training has been valuable. You can commit a to a morning event, get a few hours to workshop, learn and chat through questions. From a business point of view, they’ve been really valuable sessions. 

And be there at the events! Pick things that are interesting to you, it makes the networking easy. Moshimo was a wonderful breakfast, it felt like a chinwag – easy to connect with people and interesting to be somewhere new.

You mentioned that the Chamber is a place to collaborate, and we know you’ve been working with a few Chamber members recently. Can you tell us a bit more about those projects?

One of the projects we’ve done recently is with local distillery Brighton Gin. They’re a brilliant team and they’ve had the most amazing resilience during the pandemic. We were looking to collaborate with a small business on a campaign for Mastercard and Pollinate. 

They gave us full access to film with them for a couple of days, capturing a wonderful interview with their founder, Kathy Caton. We got out on their e-bike, met drag queen Ruffles, and the lindy-hoppers of Brighton. Our 3-minute film was a winner in the global competition, so that’s been really exciting. It’ll be featured on the Mastercard Priceless website and distributed on their channels, so we’re happy to have Brighton Gin out there far and wide – and hopefully make the distillery bigger so people can buy more gin! 

Another project I’m working on is an open call through the arts marketing association. We needed a partner as this was a film and social media package. We don’t do social, but we were suited to the film side, and I’d just received Kerry’s contact from Social for Good from Amy at the Chamber. I jumped on the phone and said do you want to do this together? We hit it off immediately, the pitch was successful and we’re now working on the project. It’s been lovely collaborating with Kerry, we work in similar ways but work on such different things, and I think it’s lovely that Chamber is a place for that – I’ve met a lot of like-minded individuals. 

And lastly, could you tell us a fun or interesting fact about yourself?

I picked up ballet again two years ago as an adult after having stopped dancing for 15 years, and I’m absolutely loving it! Brighton is a wonderful place to be doing ballet again as an adult. I’m starting back on to point now which is exciting – and which someone should probably not do at 28! 

To find the full interview with Julia, head over to brightonchamber.co.uk. And stay up-to-date with the latest news, events and updates from Brighton Chamber by signing up to our mailing list.