“Your curiosity may be the finest thing you have. Did you outgrow it?”

Somewhere between childhood and the moment you choose what to study, a lot of curiosity goes missing. Equinor calls it the STEM gap, and its new film opens there, with the question every teenager learns to dread, “Hva skal du bli?” — what are you going to be?

The film created by Anorak and directed by Bacon director, Martin de Thurah, is part of a recruitment campaign for Norwegian international energy company, Equinor. It doesn’t lecture on recruitment figures or skills shortages, nor does it present the brand as the answer. Instead, it reminds a generation of something they already know about themselves, pointing curiosity towards the fields that need it most.

Evocative images remind senior school students of the curious creatures they used to be – a tractor sits in a farmyard, its windscreen cracked, and two young boys work to set it back to work again. A young girl solders iron close to a circuit board and frowns…while a child’s voice reminds them og the questions that used to intrigue them.

The film’s most striking images come where the past meets the present. In a wood-panelled bedroom, a boy films his younger sister with a camcorder wired to an old CRT television, and the screen tracks her hand in glowing cyan points. Later the same instinct shows up at full scale: a cyclist in a wind tunnel simulation while an engineer traces the airflow around his helmet with a wand of smoke. The cut makes the campaign’s argument without stating it. The engineer is the child with the camcorder, and while the questions didn’t change, the equipment only got better.

De Thurah and DOP, Daniel Voldheim, shot the entire film in low, overcast Nordic light, with deep blues, greens and the warm glow of the sun. It trusts small gestures to carry the emotion that triggers curiosity, appealing to a younger audience that likes to find things for themselves.

The film introduces STEMgapet, Equinor’s initiative to close the gap between the curiosity children are born with, and the science and technology careers that will need it.

Credits
Client: Equinor
Head of Brand and Creative: Henrik Øines Habberstad
Head of Sponsorship: Thea Moen

Agency: Anorak
Creative Director: Robert Cerkez
Creatives: Sebastian Pandonis, Jens Østrem
Client Director: Janne Espevalen
Project Manager: Anja Sandberg Nordbø

Production Company: Bacon
Director: Martin de Thurah
Director’s Assistants: Markus Tangre, Eskil Hoel Abrahamsen
Executive Producer: Magne Lyngner
Producer: Kristi Strømmen Kjerpeset
1st AD: Jens Patterson
DOP: Daniel Voldheim

Post Producer: Herlaug Dahl Olsen
Editor: Peter Brandt
Editor’s Assistant: Ruben K. Svendsen
Grade: Julien Alary @ TMLS
Grade Producer: Eli Sandal
VFX: Erik Teigland
Online: Christopher Ekdahl

Music, Sound Design & Mix: Ballad
Sound Designer & Mixer: Adrian Aurelius
Executive Producer: Gregers Maersk Moeller