Robbery Not Theft is a short film produced by Philip and Marcus from PiPeLine Productions through our work with Nacro and the Bradford Youth Offending Team. On Thursdays we run a creative program for young people on the intensive surveillance and supervision program. Within this program participants try their hand at all manner of art forms, film production being one of them. This film was shot over about 4 weeks at various locations in Bradford. The DVD and its accompanying workbook and poster was used in schools to highlight the difference between the perceived crime of Theft and the actual crime of Robbery.

A theme was chosen in line with the Youth Offending Team’s education priorities and then the participants sketched out some scenarios which would enable us to tell the story with an educational message. So, as actors, they knew what needed to happen in each scene along with some key things that needed to be said but in order to achieve this, they improvised their scenes, making up the dialogue as they went along.
Some of the songs used in the film were created in the studio by the participants themselves and the foley artistry (the added sounds such as cars driving past, footsteps on a wooden floor, sipping a drink etc.) were all done in house and added to the film in post production.