Testemonials

PDI Media is one of Manchester’s foremost production companies. Delivering high quality short and long-form programming across TV, radio, and online platforms, alongside retail-packaged DVD, Blu-ray and digital releases, museum installations, promos, adverts and educational films, PDI Media have worked with Big Ideas since 2019 and had the below to say about their experience:

” Between us, Big Ideas and PDI Media offer a wealth of experience, working to the highest standards and with a relationship enabling a very open exchange of ideas which creatively brings the best out of each other.

We first worked together in 2019 for a project called ‘Football Remembers’ through our mutual connection with the Premier League. This programme focussed on young Academy players at professional clubs meeting former footballers who had served in World War II, in either the armed forces, the merchant navy or down the mines. 

Initially, the idea was for the potential stars of the future to learn first hand about the wartime experiences of their footballing predecessors. What emerged was a series of revelatory and moving films which saw old and young generations instantly connect with each other, as the former players, now in their nineties, described not only the hardships, separations and traumas of war, but also the camaraderie of the times and the seismic differences between football then and football now. 

The films showed the teenage players to be appreciative and inquisitive listeners, asking thoughtful questions and looking visibly moved as their interviewee opened up on subjects possibly long put to the back of the mind. For the veterans it seemed to spark a flame as they spoke with increasing emotion and candour about their experiences.  There was a great life-affirming quality to the final edits which saw the films featured on BBC 1 as well as receiving praise from MPs and high profile figures in football. 

Read more about Football Remembers here.

Subsequently, we have begun working together on the ‘Trailblazers’ series, where football’s pioneering black players meet current young Academy footballers to tell them, and of course the wider watching audience, of the racism and prejudice they faced in the not too distant past. Once again these are powerful , important stories enhanced by a cross-generational friendship emerging as they listen to each other with great empathy.  

Read more about Trailblazers here.

We have also been proud to be part of Big Ideas’ inspirational ‘Foundation Stones’ initiative, which will become part of the UK Holocaust  and Learning Centre in London by helping create promotional films for their campaign. Through our work together, story-telling and story-sharing has proved a great device for educating the watching audience and this would be a key aim of the films we would deliver for GMCA. “